Stories from the 2/19th

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Click here for Humpermonkey's story. (http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Creepypasta/Humper-Monkey%27s_Ghost_Story)

Do not read what is posted here without reading the story linked above.





Now. If you have already read it, then you may proceed onward to 50ft Ant's stories. As a little bit of background, HM and Ant are brothers, with HM being the elder of the two.





~ ~ ~ ~




Chapter 1

2/19th Company Area
Restricted Area, Western Europe
Christmas Season, 1988
The names have been changed to protect the participants



I woke up on the top bunk, with the usual glaze of ice on the ceiling above my head, shivering from the cold. I had to piss pretty bad, so I climbed down, careful when I put my weight on the floor. Sure as hell, a thin patina of ice coated the tile. The room was silent, dark, and lonely. The lights on my stereo system were dead, so I didn't even bother with the light switch.

The power was out again.

I took a leak, then got dressed. Long johns underneath T-shirt, jeans, and a flannel shirt, with nice warm socks and my combat boots. Shivering, I grabbed my keys, flashlight, and knife then headed out the door, locking it behind me, and walked down toward the double doors that separated the hallway into two halves. The hallway was as long as a city block, pitch black with just a dim glow from the emergency lights, and had ice glittering on the walls. I thumbed on my flashlight and clipped it to the pocket of my flannel so I didn't have to bother holding onto it.

Something banged and screamed behind me.

I hunched my shoulders and pushed my hands into my pockets, ignored the low moan as I passed the laundry room and pushed my way through the double doors. A whiff of decay, rotting meat and the unmistakable subtle scent of rotting blood, was whipped away by a cold breeze, and my breathe plumed out in front of me.

My boots thudded on the tile as I headed toward the far stairs, passing by people's rooms. People I knew, people I drank with, fought with, and worked with. People that were gone back to the States or deployed to Graf or Bremerhaven, leaving only a skeleton crew of 24 "mission essential" personnel behind.

I'd been recalled from Fulda, where Bomber, Nagle, and I had been TDY to 11 ACR for around 3 months, and denied leave.

Which was the reason I was opening the door to the main stairwell, which went 2 stories above me and 2 stories down, the last underground. A shriek sounded from upstairs followed by a low sobbing moan. I shivered and went down the flight of stairs, keeping one hand on the ice slicked wall in case I hit a patch of ice over the grip strips and went down the stairs.

Two days ago a new E-5 out of Fort Hood hadn't listened to our warnings, and went too fast on the steps, hit a slick spot, and fell a flight of stairs. He broke his leg, a couple of ribs, and had a compound fracture of one arm, as well as knocking him cold.

And froze to death in a puddle of his own blood before anyone found him.

I pushed open the door to the CQ Area, noticing that the door to the 1st Floor Rec Room was closed, along with the day room, and of course the unisex bathroom that nobody used.

The same bathroom that Tandy vanished out of before the building had burnt down and been rebuilt according to the same floor plan.

"Jakes?" I called out.

No answer except for the emergency light behind the desk giving it up and slowly fading out, pulsing slower and slower before finally being nothing more than a faint red glow more felt than seen.

No CQ, no ACQ, no Duty Driver, no Assistant Duty Driver, no nothing.

Just me, shivering and breathing out plumes of steam.

Curious, I walked around behind the desk and opened the log. If the clocks on the wall were right (and they were all off between 5 and 15 minutes) Jakes had answered the phones when the ammo sites called about a half hour before to let the unit know that they were all clear, but nothing else was written outside of the hourly checks from the FSTS sites.

Parkas, cold weather masks, trigger mittens, all were laying on the table against the back wall.

Shit.

I dug out my keys, walked to the back of the CQ area, and opened up "The Closet", where the breakers were and the weather readouts, and flicked the switch out of habit, getting nothing.

My flashlight revealed that all the gauges and dials were dead. Water pressure was about all we had, and the power had been out long enough that the water-heater temperature was down to about 50 F. Outside temperature was well below freezing, wind speed was above 50MPH, humidity was bad, and the barometer was going south, dropping while I was watching.

Shit.

I went back out into the CQ and checked the lines. Two were dedicated lines, one to V Corps, the other to the Rangers. The other four lines were standard phone lines, used to make normal calls. The other two lines were only for emergencies.

All but one of them were dead, nothing but an echoing silence. The dead one gave a steady crackling hiss.

I heard a low chuckle behind me and the door to The Closet slammed shut, making me jump.

Damn it.

I dug out the morning report and crosschecked the names with room numbers in the alert roster. Only 13 of us in the barracks, the rest either lived off post or in on post housing. From the sheet, Jakes was the highest ranking according to the morning report from the day before, with me, Bomber, and Nagle coming in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th respectively.

Opening the rest of the drawers didn't turn up the keys, the vehicle dispatch, nothing that should have been there.

I checked the log again. Nothing about the Duty Driver or the ADD having to go somewhere. No emergencies. Only standard "All reports logged" and times, along with 1LT Jackson calling in that he was heading to Frankfurt but no reason why 1st Platoon's platoon leader was leaving us without an officer against SOP. But then, LT Jackson had only gotten to the unit two months before, and in the week I'd been back to the unit I'd heard him wax poetically about how everything that had happened was either bullshit or how if he'd been here when everything went up in flames things would have turned out differently.

I sat down, lit a cigarette, and turned the chair so I could see the door outside, the double doors to the hallway, and the stairwell door, plus I could see the clocks if I just turned my head instead of turning all the way around.

I'll give them 15 minutes...

It was almost 2AM.

Somewhere four men were wandering around.

Had they gone outside? Without their cold weather gear and in the weather that the gauges were reporting outside, they would be dead within minutes. When the hypothermia kicked in, they'd get confused and who knows how far they'd wander.

If they went outside, we'd find them in the spring, if ever.

The 15 minutes went by and I opened the logbook, took a piece of paper out of the drawer, and wrote that I'd be back, I was checking the barracks, and if anyone needed anything, I'd be back before 3AM.

I glanced outside, through the two sets of double doors, and saw nothing but white.

Whiteout. Fuck.

I hated the barracks. I begged, bribed, and threatened to get put on TDY or unit support rather than be back in the barracks. Nagle, Bomber, and I had managed to wheedle our way into field exercises for over 9 months, only returning to the unit for an afternoon or maybe a weekend here and there. If I wasn't at a field exercise or TDY, I preferred to stay out at the FSTS and away from the unit.

The shriek that echoed down the hallway reminded me why I'd rather be training C-DAT's how to inspect the APDSFSDU-T's and watching them to make sure they didn't lick them or something.

I used my key to open up the dayroom, the rec-room, to find nobody inside. In the day room the TV was on, displaying only static, and through the windows I could see nothing but swirling white, with faint hints of something dark moving out there that I told myself was just my imagination.

Taking a few deep breaths I went in and checked the bathroom.

It was ice cold inside, the sinks and stalls still looking like nobody had ever used them. There was dust on the sinks, and the floor tile was dull with no black streaks from soldier's boots on them. Nobody had been in there for weeks, months, maybe not since the building was built.

Another scream sounded out from behind me and I shivered and headed out of the bathroom, ashamed that I was shivering from more than the cold after being in that bathroom.

The last place anyone had seen Tandy before ARTEP...

I half expected to see his shaving kit still open on the sink.

The double doors between the CQ area and the first half of the ground floor hallway screamed when I pushed my way through them, my flashlight beam dancing around, sparkling on the frost that covered the walls. My breath plumed out in front of me as I walked down the hallway, my boots thudding. SGT Swope had slipped on ice in the hallway a week ago and broken her elbow.

I stopped outside Nagle's room and knocked on the door. It took a few minutes and a few more knocks, but Nagle answered, wrapped in a nightgown, fuzzy robe and a blanket with her fuzzy bunny slippers, wearing a look that combined irritation and sleepiness.

"What the fuck do you want, Ant?" She snarled/yawned. "Go beat off, I'm sleeping."

"CQ crew is gone, can't find them, power's down." I told her.

"Go away, don't care." She answered, and went to slam her door, but instead bounced it off my boot.

"Get dressed, Nancy, I'm gonna grab Bomber." I smiled and held up my keyring, "Don't make me come in there."

She grumbled behind me as I walked off and she closed the door.

Through the double doors, take a left, up a flight of stairs, take another left, and head toward the end of the hallway.

Ignore the screams. Ignore the sobs. Ignore the cold chill down the back. Ignore the whiff of burning flesh and jet fuel.

God, I want a drink.

I didn't bother knocking on Bomber's door, I just used my key and walked in.

For some reason when keys were handed out (I came back after everyone else had moved into the barracks) they'd handed me a key which turned out to be a master key. You named it in the barracks, my key opened it if it wasn't a secure area with a heavy security door and locks. I should have turned it in, I should have reported it, but for some reason, I kept it.

Bomber was curled up under his blankets, so I just grabbed the edge and whipped them off.

2/19th was required to be extreme cold weather survival certified by order of the post commander. Before you could move into the barracks, you had to attend the class. You learned how to survive in the cold, and one of the most important parts was how you sleep. While a person is sleeping they have a tendency to sweat. That sweat can create ice between the blanket layers, in the sleeping bag, or on top of your blanket/fart sack, so you had to sleep a simple way.

Naked.

And Bomber sucking his thumb, like always.

"Get the hell up, you Texas retard!" I yelled at him, throwing the blankets back on top of him in order to spare my eyes any more full view of Texas.

He came awake pretty quick and I filled him in on what I had and hadn't seen. He cursed, both at the situation and me, but he didn't refuse to come with me, just bitched and called me a chickenshit for not doing it all by myself.

While he dressed I stood and looked out the window. It was nothing but swirling thick white. If it wasn't dumping snow on main post already, it was going to smash the fuck out of them within a few hours and dump a few feet on them. The ski resort would be thrilled with all the powder.

We were cut off and isolated.

Again.

Nagle was waiting for us at the CQ Area, her flashlight in her hand, picking up the phones, listening, and slamming them down.

"How the fuck did our dedicated line go down?" She asked.

The dedicated lines ran to main post, the cables wrapped in foam and in pipes that were then buried into the ground. By all rights, there should have been nothing short of a nuclear weapon able to knock them out, and then only if the line itself got damaged by the burst.

Or sabotage.

It was 0230, the log book was unchanged, the cold weather gear was still there, and the clocks were still ticking away. The amount of time they were all off had shifted, but that was normal. Rumor control said that no two clocks in barracks kept the same time.

"What do we do, Ant?" Bomber asked, rubbing his hands together. All of us were in jackets (Bomber and I wore fleece lined Levi jackets, Nagle wore a goosedown jacket), but it was getting colder in the barracks and the chill was starting to soak into our bones.

"First thing first, we see if we can get the generators fired up."

Straight out of the handbook.

We hit the middle stairwell and went down to the basement, the darkness seeming to get thicker as we went. My flashlight started to dim, the beam getting more and more yellow the further down the steps we went. Our footsteps sounded muffled, and the wind had managed to slither into the stairwell and pluck at us with icy fingers.

The generator room was down in what used to be the sub-basement, which we had to access by going into the furnace/water heater room.

I unlocked the door, and my flashlight went dead. Bomber and Nagle waited for me to switch the batteries in my flashlight (Never go anywhere in the building without extra batteries, always store the batteries wrapped in paper and then wrapped with tinfoil) before we opened the door.

The massive hot water heaters sat silently against one wall, the two furnaces were silent, the oil tanks squatted between the water heaters and the furnace. The room felt claustrophobic despite the size, all bare unpainted concrete. Pallets of covered war-stock lined the far side of the room, and the door to the stairwell to the sub-basement was at the halfway point, across the room from the oil tanks.

"We should have stayed in Fulda." Nagle bitched. "I'm so cold my fucking nipples are going to fall off."

I grinned at her, and went in. We stopped by the switch boxes and moved the big handle switches from external power to internal, bitched for a few minutes about how cold it was, then walked over to the door, quickly unlocking it. When I hauled the door opened, the smell washed over us.

Decay.

The sub-basement always smelled like there was something dead down there, no matter how much time had passed, no matter how well it was searched with nothing found, it always smelled like death.

We went down the stairs, and I unlocked the door to the generator room, ignoring the other three doors in the short hallway. All of them contained additional war stocks for use in the barracks.

According to the inventory sheets and rumor control, the generator room contained four 5K generators and two 60K generators, 6 fuel tanks were outside the building, two down in the sub-basement. Like the oil tanks, they were inside the building to prevent slurry or freezing in the pipes or lines. The generator room, like the three other rooms, could be accessed by the large hallway that ran behind them. The barracks sat on a hill, which meant that the ramp from the hallway to the doors that opened out to the surface was fairly gentle of an incline. The war stocks and the generators had been moved in through the doors, into the hallways, then into the correct rooms via large double doors at the far side of the room. I'd never seen them, but I'd checked the door a few times on CQ to make sure it was still locked. You just checked it, if it was locked, you signed off on the sheet by the door, if it was unlocked, you locked it and noted it on the sheet before signing off.

"We'll fire up the generators, then sweep the barracks and see if we can find Jakes and the others." I said. Bomber grunted and Nagle just nodded.

I pulled open the door to the generator room, already thinking about what order I'd need to fire them up. Looking forward to then getting the water heaters and furnaces running. My brain ticked through that the water heaters needed to be priority, since living areas were heated via radiators, and the oil furnaces would be used to warm up the rest of the big ass building. At the rate the temperature was dropping, we'd need to wake everyone up, or at least check on them, and make sure we didn't have any cold weather casualties.

I flashed my light in while thinking over the steps I'd need to take.

The cables that led into the ceiling or walls glimmered, black under the frost. The fuel tanks sat solidly, full of diesel fuel, coated in frost. The doors looked like they were frozen shut. The chain looked like it had been coated with pixie dust by tinkerbell.

And no generators.

The smell of decay rolled over the three of us.

"What the fuck?" Bomber said.

A scream ripped down the stairwell.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 2

"I hate this fucking place!" I yelled, staring at the mostly empty room.

"Where are the fucking generators?" Nagle asked, stepping into the room and looking around. "There's supposed to be generators in here."

"Goddamn black market assholes." Bomber grumbled, then turned and looked at me. "What's the plan, smart guy?"

I looked at the empty room, wondering where the hell all that sheer weight of metal could have gone. You needed a goddamn forklift to move 5K generators, a pallet jack at the very least. "I have no idea." I admitted, walking in and stopping next to the fuel tanks. Out of curiosity I knocked on them.

Empty.

Fuck.

Nagle checked the lock on the chains on the door that led to the access hallway, pulling on it for moment. Locked. I bent down and took a look at the hoses that led from both the pipes on the walls and the fuel tanks.

Not a single scratch or nick on the copper nipple.

I sniffed them, but all I smelled was the ever present smell of decay.

"We're not in trouble that bad." Bomber said from the darkness behind me. The dumbass hadn't brought a flashlight with him and Nagle was panning hers over the ceiling, pointing out icicles, some of them almost a foot long.

"Yeah, I heard freezing to death isn't that bad of a way to go." Nagle sneered.

"He's right." I told her, standing up and shivering again. "The furnaces and water heater are all oil fired. We'll get them running and then figure out what to do."

"My thought exactly." Bomber grinned. "Glad to hear you agree with my plan." I made a face. Typical Bomber.

We headed back up the stairs after closing the generator room door. The cavernous basement swallowed our lights, and I could almost feel the darkness pressing on us, and for some reason I became very aware of the building squatting over us. A building that had been built by the lowest bidder. A building that almost exactly followed the floor plan of a barracks that had tried its damnedest to kill me and 19 other people, including my older brother. A building that had already been found to have serious construction faults.

"Fuck, these things are electrically fired." Bomber said after taking the panel off the first massive water heater and looking inside with my flashlight. "You press the button and hold it till the burners light up and the fans kick on."

"We'll have to do it the hard way." I said, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it real quick. I knelt down and looked inside, pointing out to Bomber where to shine the light. The data sheet on the water heater was still on the inside of the panel and I stared at it for a long time, memorizing parts of it.

"Well?" Nagle asked. She was shining her light in steady sweeps across the darkness and I could hear her teeth chattering. Bomber was knocking on the oil tanks and getting back dull thumps. Full. Thank God.

"It needs electrical, we're going to have to do this the hard way." I said, standing back up and taking my flashlight back from Bomber. I panned it across the wall and then wiggled between the two heaters so I could see behind them.

A scream echoed through the basement, raising goosebumps on my arms. I was suddenly very aware that I was pinned between and slightly behind a water heater that probably weighed about two tons. Without water.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Nagle snarled. She was in a bad mood, cold, tired, and if she was anything like me, a little scared.

"We need to find a generator." I told her, then kicked my boot. "Bomber, pull me out."

"Hey, Ant, in case you didn't notice, the generators are gone." She said as Bomber grabbed my ankles and pulled me out from between the hulking metal behemoths.

"In the generator room, yeah." Bomber said, and I nodded. "Let's check the inventory sheets."

We went to each tarp covered stack, pulling the inventory sheets out the clear plastic envelopes and quickly scanned them.

Body bags. Uniforms. Boots. Sleeping bags. TA-50. Tools. All broken down by platoon and squad. Everything we'd need to fight when the Soviets rolled into the Fulda Gap.

Except fucking generators.

"What about the war stocks rooms?" Nagle asked when we finished. It was getting colder, even down in the basement, which meant that it had to be colder than a witch's ass on a brass broomstick in the rest of the barracks.

"No key." I answered. "Jakes has the keys, they weren't in the CQ Area."

"How many of us are left in the barracks?" Bomber asked, shivering. All of our teeth were chattering and I started walking toward the stairwell access.

"CQ is all from the barracks tonight. That leaves ten people we need to find if we count them. If we don't, we need to find six." I answered, remembering the morning report. "That's if nobody else is missing." I finished lamely.

"Yeah. If." Bomber agreed, his normal Texas cheer missing.

In the stairwell both Nagle's and my flashlight cut out, leaving us in darkness. A whispering noise surrounded us, and the faint sound of scratching could be heard. A sobbing moan drifted through the stairwell, and I heard either Nagle or Bomber inhale sharply.

I suddenly had to piss really badly.

I could hear Nagle unscrewing her flashlight and I did the same, almost racing her to get it open and drop in new batteries. I stripped the tinfoil and paper off them and dropped them in, then sighed with relief when it lit back up.

I still remembered my flashlight batteries cutting out and new batteries not getting my flashlight restarted one fateful night.

We started up the stairs, reached the mid-way landing, turned to go up, and stopped in our tracks, staring.

Nagle screamed.

Bomber cursed.

I just stared, mouth open.

Dark red had oozed from the edge of the ceiling that was formed by the 2nd floor landing, running down the wall next to the 1st floor door, and freezing solid. Our flashlights glittered off the frost that covered it, and my brain just refused to process what I was seeing.

Bomber moved before I did, rushing up the stairs, heedless of the ice on the steps, and slamming his shoulder against the door. I was right on his heels, and could feel and hear Nagle right after me. Nagle tripped me as we went through, and we both went down on the floor, dragging Bomber with us. I kicked at the door wildly until it slammed shut and then scrambled backwards until my back hit the wall. I knew my eyes were wild, and I was shaking from more than the cold.

"What the fuck was that!" Nagle yelled.

"How the fuck should I know?" I yelled back.

"It was fucking blood! Oh fuck, it was fucking blood!" Bomber yelled, jumping up.

"CQ Area!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet.

All three of us blew through the mid-way doors, pounded down the hallway at a dead run, and burst through the doors to the CQ Area and came skidding to a halt.

It was empty, and we looked at each other and laughed nervously for a moment. A faint sobbing noise sobered us really quickly. We went around the counter and back to the drawers.

While Bomber jotted down the numbers of the occupied rooms, I went into The Closet and checked the gauges.

No power.
Temperature had dropped by 5 degrees.
Wind speed was gusting up to 60 mph.

When I came out of The Closet Nagle held up the V Corps line and shook her head.

"Damn it." I cursed. I pointed at the double doors. "We're getting a hell of a storm out there. Nobody's coming to fucking save us."

Bomber grinned at me.

"What's so fucking funny?" Nagle asked.

"At least I got to fuck a Bigfoot." He said.

I couldn't help it, I laughed, and so did Nagle.

"All right, let's go get everyone else." I said. "How many on the first floor?"

"Nagle. That's it." Bomber said.

"Second floor?"

"Everyone but Jakes and Tanner." He told me. "They were on CQ."

"Fourth?"

"Nobody."

"Good."

"I'm not going back in that stairwell." Nagle said.

"You wanna stay here by yourself?" I asked.

"No."

"Let's take this stairwell." Bomber suggested, and we both nodded.

"Third floor first." I said, rummaging around in another drawer and coming up with a heavy duty flashlight. One of the ones with the big square batteries. I clicked it off and on, then slapped it a few times. We got lucky, it lit.

Bomber opened the door and we shined our flashlights in. No blood on the wall, but there was still thick ice. We tromped up the stairs to the third floor and pushed out into the hallway. The office space to our right was empty, but at Nagle's suggestion we swept through it real quick, using my key to open the doors.

Nobody.

We knocked on Tanner's door first, and got no answer. After trying twice more I unlocked the door and we went in.

It was empty.

I relocked the door and we headed down to Jakes' room, where we repeated the process.

When I opened the door the wind hit us in the face, the temperature in the hallway dropping. I could see that his window was open, letting in the snow and the wind. Cursing we went in, shut his window, and looked around.

Empty.

We got luckier on the second floor.

Daniels and Hewitt shared a room, Hewitt answered the door after I banged on it a couple of times.

"What the hell's going on? It's fucking freezing in here." He said. He was dressed in PT sweats.

"Furnace and water heater are off, and we've lost power." Bomber said. "Daniels in there?"

"Yeah. Why are you banging on my door?"

"I'll tell you later. Just stay in your room, OK?" I said.

"You woke me up for that shit?"

"I'm serious. Don't go anywhere just yet, but wake up Daniels and get dressed." I told him.

"Why?" He asked.

"I'm taking a head count, then we're going to figure out what to do." I told him.

"You're an asshole." He answered, and slammed the door. I was tempted to kick in his door and beat his ungrateful ass.

Hernandez answered his door, wrapped in his blanket. When I told him to get dressed and wait for me in his room, he nodded and shut the door.

Jacobs and Lewis both did the same.

Carter didn't answer, so I unlocked the door and we went in.

He was curled up in his bed, pale in our flashlight beams, and his earlobes and the tip of his nose had a blackish blue tint.

"Shit." Bomber said, reaching down and shaking him. "He's ice fucking cold."

"Hold our flashlights, Nagle." I said, handing mine to her. Bomber did the same, moving down to Carter's feet. "Ready?" I asked. Bomber nodded, and we pulled the sheet out from under the mattress and got a good grip on it.

On three we lifted him up, and had Nagle lead the way back to Lewis' room, since it was closer.

"Is he dead?" Lewis asked as soon as he opened the door.

"Not yet." Bomber answered. Lewis nodded and stepped aside so we could get in the room. We staggered over to the bed that wasn't a bunkbed set and set him down on it, sheet, blankets, and all.

"Get under the covers with him, I'll pile your blankets on top of you." Nagle said while Bomber and I stepped back.

Lewis had been to arctic survival just like us, and knew that this was pretty much the only chance Carter had. Bomber and I took back the flashlights, and I took Nagles, then she went over and gathered up all the blankets off the other two beds. By the time she finished Lewis had climbed under the covers with Carter and wrapped his arms around the other man.

Nagle piled the blankets on both of them, wet her finger, and held it in front of Carter's nose.

"Still alive." She said.

"Wait here, we'll be back." Bomber said.

"He's fucking freezing." Lewis told us, and shivered under the covers.

"Try to keep him alive, man." I told them. "We're going back down to the CQ Area."

We left Lewis' room and at Bomber's suggestion we went backwards, telling everyone to get their blankets and wait in Lewis' room, Room 208, and waited till everyone agreed.

Once everyone started moving, we went up to the 4th floor, and I unlocked each room. A quick look see in the bathroom of each room and the living area, we'd leave, lock the door, and move to the next one.

It was getting colder by the minute.

As we passed by the second floor middle stairwell I stopped.

"I gotta know." I said. Nagle nodded, her face pale in the backwash from the flashlights.

I pushed open the door, and then slammed it shut.

The entire landing was covered in frozen red.

"Oh fuck." Bomber breathed.

We hurried on, finishing the sweep of the second floor and moving down to the first floor. Nagle checked the female's rooms.

Nobody.

Finally we got to the doors that opened up into the CQ Area and pushed them open.

Nagle screamed when our flashlight beams dimly lit up the room.

Both sets of double doors were open. The wind was howling and snow was blowing through the doors. The doors to the Dayroom were open, and I could tell by the way the wind tore through the CQ area that the windows were either open or shattered. There was already a couple inches of snow on the tile and the wind kept blowing snow into the room.

And there was a snowman built in the middle of the room.

It wore a BDU softcap, had a broken OD green flashlight, the battery container only, creating a jagged ended nose, and its eyes and slash of a mouth were chrome. Its arms were two halves of a broken mop, and the hair underneath the softcap was a mophead. A knife handle stuck out of its round chest, as if someone had stabbed it in the chest.

I stepped forward and looked closer at the eyes, aware that I was in the middle of the room, that there was nothing between me and the outside on my right, nothing but the dayroom chairs between me and a twenty foot drop to the ground on my left. I shined my flashlight at the eyes and leaned in to check.

They were chrome with black edging.

Dogtags.

Dogtags with rubber silencers on them.

My dogtags.

From where I'd left them hanging in the bathroom in my room.

The mouth was a broken off knife blade.

The hilt in the chest matched the blade. A hilt I recognized.

One of the knives out of my desk.

The red emergency light clicked on, turning the snow crimson.

And the snowman bloody.

Outside, in the snow, came another scream. A long, drawn out scream.

The red emergency light strobed for a second and cut out.

With a snarl I plucked my dogtags out of the snowman's face, then kicked it down, cursing and snarling the whole time. I was vaguely aware that I was hovering on the edge of losing control, that I was wavering between panic and going apeshit. I could smell jet fuel and burning bodies, I could hear screaming, and the scars across my back had ignited, my brain registering the freezing wind howling around me as my shirt charring on my back.

"I'll fucking kill you!" I screamed, turning and taking a step toward the door. Before I could take the second step Bomber had me around the neck, pulling me back in a full nelson while Nagle moved in front of me, grabbing my face in her hands.

"Don't! Don't go out there! Please, Ant, calm down!" She said. Suddenly she leaned forward and kissed me, the taste of her lips, the feel of her tongue darting into my mouth, the pressure of her mouth against mine, suddenly bringing me back to reality.

It's what somebody wants... slithered through my brain.

I relaxed, and Bomber slowly let me go. I'd dropped my flashlight in the snow, and when Bomber let me go, I picked it up slowly, anger still making my head pound.

"What the fuck is going on?" Nagle asked, walking over to the outer doors and kicking the chocks up so she could close them.

Beyond her, in the snow, dark shapes moved around just beyond the reach of my flashlight, as if they were edging toward her but unwilling to brave the light.

Four shadows... my mind insisted.

Once the doors shut, the wind cut down, and Bomber went into the day room to shut the windows in there while Nagle shut the inner doors.

I simply stood there, next to the ruined snowman, shaking with the after effects of too much adrenaline. Whoever had done this had been in my room, had gone through my stuff, and had done this knowing I'd find it.

"We've got a psycho." I said. Nagle and Bomber turned and looked at me.

"Shit." Bomber said, looking around the CQ area, panning his flashlight. Snow was thick on the floor, wind had scattered the paper from the bulletin board everywhere. He walked behind the desk and stopped. When I shined the light on him his face was bloodless.

"What?" Nagle asked.

Bomber wordlessly held up the phone receiver, the black plastic looking unclean in his hand somehow.

Three inches of curled cord dangled from the receiver.

Shit.

"What about the log?" I asked.

"Gone."

"What do we do?" I asked. My brain was whirring, running through the logic chains and permutations.

The majority of the decision trees ended up with all of us dead.

"I don't know, Ant. Punt?" Bomber came back around the counter and stood next to me. Nagle was on the other side of me, keeping her flashlight on the doors of the hallway and the rec-room.

And the bathroom.

"We need to get back to the others, we'll have to form up in Lewis' room, I don't want to move Carter." Nagle said. I nodded wordlessly, trying to figure out our next move.

No matter what we did, we were in danger.

Roll the dice or play it safe?

"Roger that." I said.

Bomber led the way, through the doors, the wind shrieking and the door hinges screaming in protest. Our shoes left snow in the hallway as we walked in silence down the hallway.

"Do we tell them?" Bomber asked suddenly, breaking the eerie quiet.

"I don't know. This is way above my pay grade." I answered.

"We need to tell them. There's a psycho loose." Nagle added.

"Except for one problem." I added as we pushed through the second set of doors. I started to reach for the door handle to the middle stairwell and pulled back with a hiss.

"What's that?" Bomber asked. All three of us stood at the door to the middle stairwell.

Above us, in the darkness, the landing was coated with red ice. On the other side of the door the wall was coated with the same.

"One of them might be the psycho." I told them.

"Shit." Nagle summed it up.

Bomber nodded, and wordlessly we all started walking to the end stairwell rather than take the middle stairwell.

I led the way, checking up with my flashlight. Nagle came in next, flashing her light down the stairwell, leaning over and looking all the way to the bottom. Bomber closed the door behind him and we all stood for a long moment in the stairwell. After a few moments of silence, broken by a sobbing scream from upstairs, we began plodding up the steps to the second floor.

The door opened with a shriek that echoed down the hallway, and Hewitt popped his head out the door.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on yet?" he asked.

"Tell Daniels that we're forming up in Lewis' room, 245." I told him. "Bring all your blankets."

"Fuck you, tell me what's going on." He answered. I could smell the booze on his breath.

"Stay in your room and freeze to fucking death then." I snarled back, moving past him.

Jacobs answered his door right away, and asked us to wait for him while he grabbed all the blankets in his room. He had 2 other room mates, both of whom had gone back to CONUS for Christmas, and he grabbed their blankets too.

Hernandez had more than just blankets, he'd grabbed his sleeping bag and his room mates sleeping bag.

"I busted the locks on their wall lockers." He admitted.

"Good man." Bomber said, taking one of the sleeping bags. "Good thinking."

We all walked down the hallway. Outside the wind was howling, inside moans and screams echoed through the dark hallways.

I unlocked the door to Lewis' room with my key and we all went in.

I was half afraid that the room would be empty except for Carter's corpse.

"Lewis?" I asked into the darkness.

"I'm here, Ant." I almost wept at the sound of his voice.

"How's Carter?" I asked, moving further into the room. The others followed me.

"He's shivering." Lewis answered. "I think he'll make it."

"Thank God." Nagle breathed.

"We're going to form up in here, I'll explain when everyone gets here." I said. Nagle walked over and sat on one of the empty beds, taking a blanket offered by Jacobs with a wan smile and wrapping it around herself.

The temperature in the barracks was still dropping.

I was almost ready to go down to their room and drag them out when Hewitt and Daniels showed up. Hewitt wasn't carrying anything, but Daniels had blankets in his arms, including the quilt he usually kept on his bed.

"What the fuck is going on, Ant?" Hewitt asked.

"I don't know." I admitted.

"Someone needs to go down and start the generators." Lewis said.

Nagle barked a harsh laugh and held up her hand when everyone looked at her. "Sorry, it's just that that ain't happening."

"What do you mean?" Hewitt again with the nasty tone. I caught myself looking at his hands.

They were clean.

"The generators are gone." Bomber answered. "I don't think they were ever there, but even if they were, someone stole them."

"Bullshit." Hewitt snarled. "You three are full of shit."

"Then go check, high speed." I snarled back.

I'd hated Hewitt since he'd gotten there in June. He was a nasty mouthed fucking bigot who talked shit about people behind their backs while being all nice to them in person. During REFORGER he'd taken my Walkman from under my pillow and took it out to guard duty with him, and I caught him putting it back with dead batteries.

"I don't need to to know you're fucking lying." He sneered.

"Call me a liar again." I snarled, taking a step toward him. My muscles were still thrumming with the adrenaline from that fucking snowman, and my frustration and fear had built up into a temple throbbing rage.

"You're a fucking liar, Ant." He sneered, "What are you going..."

Dropping my flashlight I hit him while his mouth was open, catching him right on the lower part of the jaw, and I felt it go under my knuckles. He started to spin with the blow, but I wasn't done with him. I put my left into his stomach, folding him up, and drove a knee into his face. Everything went red as I went with him down to the floor in the darkness.

Bomber and Hernandez drug me off him. I was shouting that I'd beat his ass for that goddamn snowman bullshit and everyone was staring.

Lewis was sitting up, and it was obvious that both he and Carter were naked under all the blankets.

Eyes went from me to Lewis.

"Lewis... why are you and Carter naked?" Daniels asked. Nagle was kneeling down next to Hewitt, checking his pulse.

"Hypothermia." He said. "Gotta warm him up or he's going to die." He laid back down and pulled the blankets back over the two of them.

"Oh." Daniels said, then turned to me. "What snowman?"

I filled them in on what we'd seen so far.

Hewitt woke up during the recounting, and his glare told me that he didn't think it was over. I hoped not. I wanted to beat on the racist cocksucker some more.

"Blood? No fucking way." Jacobs protested.

"Go look." Nagle said.

Jacobs borrowed Nagle's flashlight went out the door, and I locked it behind him.

Less than five minutes later he was hammering on the door. I opened it up and he rushed into the room, his face pale.

"There's fucking blood everywhere!" He half yelled.

"No shit, Sherlock." Bomber answered.

We filled them in on the rest, including the snowman. Thankfully Bomber omitted the part where I almost went charging out into the snow.

There was a loud crash outside the room, and all of us jumped.

"It's getting cold as fuck in here." Hernandez said. "We've got to do something."

"I've got a plan." I said, and everyone turned to look at me.

"Bomber, Nagle and I are going to go out there." I said.

Everyone stared at me.

Outside the door to the room there was a long drawn out scream.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 3

Bomber, Nagle and I walked down the hallway, only my flashlight leading the way. Nagle and Bomber had given theirs to the few people left in the unit that were all gathered in Lewis' room. The barracks creaked and groaned around us, and a steady slamming noise could be heard coming from somewhere in the building.

Frost glittered on the walls and floor, with patches of ice here and there. When we pushed the midpoint doors open there was a crack of breaking ice and the swirl of wind around our legs. Once again I caught the odor of something dead and rotting.

"Someone's opened some more windows." Nagle said when we paused on the other side of the doors. Upstairs there was a scream of agreement that floated down the stairwell behind us.

"Who do you think it is?" I asked.

"If it's someone from the unit, it has to be either the guys from CQ or someone from the unit that we didn't know was back." Bomber said, rubbing his hands together. "Kee-Rist, it's cold."

We kept walking toward my room, and I pulled my keyring out of my pocket. We stopped in front of my door. We'd agreed to grab the extreme cold weather gear out of our rooms before we followed through with my plan. A plan that held a little bit more than a trace of desperation. Sadly, it was pretty much our only hope, and it carried more than a little bit of risk.

I reached out, put my hand on the handle of my door, and reached forward with my key.

And my door fell inward, pivoting in my hand and smashing me across the shins, knocking me down and taking Nagle with me. I laid there for a moment, a little stunned by the fall, bouncing my head off the ice covered tile, and the fact that my door had just fallen the fuck off!

Bomber panned the light into my room as I looked up, and my heart sank.

My roommates and my wall lockers were all open, the doors hanging half off the hinges. Our TA-50 scattered around, down stuffing blowing out of the room and into the hallway. My desk drawers were yanked out, the three 3-drawer chests broken, my stereo and computer smashed.

My windows open.

"Someone kicked open your door." Bomber said as Nagle and I got to our feet.

We went in and looked around. My blankets were ruined, the quilt my grandmother made me shredded, the cold weather gear was hanging from the end of the bunk bed, sliced down the back and stuffing pulled out, and my longjohns tied into a noose and thrown over the chair in front of the desk.

My Guns & Roses poster was shredded on the wall, my award letters torn off the wall and laying on the snow dusted floor, and my poor Amiga-500 was shattered in front of the dented refrigerator. It looked like someone had taken my typewriter and used it to beat to death the rest of the electronics in the room. My Amiga monitor and my roommate's television were smashed and set on the beds, the mattresses torn down the middle and the stuffing ripped out. Ice glittered where water had been poured on the beds.

To top it off, all my roommates and my clothing was piled in the middle of the room and was nothing more than a mass of ice and cloth. Someone had poured water on the clothing or soaked it in the shower before throwing it in a pile in the middle of my room.

"I think someone doesn't like you." Bomber finished, no trace of his usual good humor and his Texas accent thick enough to smother someone. Nagle was moving through the room, staying in the beam of the flashlight, poking around in the wreckage that not too long before had been my room.

"Ya think?" I asked. Someone had even cut the fingers off my black gloves and torn up my trigger mittens. And then left them on my desk, a chunk of ice, to mock me.

My knives were broken, the hilts and the blades laid out nice and neat on my dresser. My Zippo lighter collection was destroyed, the lighters pulled apart and then crushed and then set up nice and neat on the dresser, next to the knives. 3.5 and 5.25 floppies were either broken and scattered around or crumpled up and thrown about.

My alarm clock was smashed and then set back upright on my roommates dresser, the hands pointing at midnight.

Everything was gone. Everything I owned, everything my roommates owned, was destroyed.

All three bottles of Wild Turkey had been broken and left on my bunk.

"Let's try my room." Bomber suggested after a few minutes. I nodded mutely, trying to figure out who had done it and why, and coming up blank.

We all walked the few doors down to his room. We paused for a moment, listening the banging noise from inside, beyond the door.

Bomber gave me the smile that he usually got right before he clocked someone in the face. I smiled back and drew my knife from the sheathe on my belt.

He turned the handle, and I held up three fingers, jerked my hand and folded one, did it again, then finally made a fist. With a shout he threw open the door and both of us charged into the room.

Bombers windows were open, wind whipping snow in.

His wall lockers were open, the doors banging back and forth.

The mattresses on the bunks were bare. His wall lockers empty, even the one with his civilian clothing. His walls were bare. His room mates' lockers were empty. His TV was gone. Even his rodeo buckles were gone off the walls.

His room was bare. Only the desk, the dressers, and the beds.

No three drawer chests, no desk drawers, no dresser drawers, even his bathroom was stripped bare.

It was if nobody lived there.

"My room..." Nagle said, and we looked at each other.

Without bothering to search Bombers room we hurried to the stairwell, jogging in our haste to get there before whoever had ripped Bomber and my room to shit got to hers.

Bomber went first, banging through the door and heading for the steps, flashlight casting wild shadows on the walls.

And slipped on the first step.

Bomber yelled and went face first down the stairs, bringing his arms up over his head as he pitched forward into the darkness, the flashlight flying from his hand.

I thought he'd slipped on the ice and lunged forward to grab him.

And felt my foot go out from under me right at the edge of the steps.

I windmilled, reaching out and grabbing the steps going up and swinging hard against the banister. Nagle screamed Bomber's name. Bomber cursed as he bounced off the steps.

My knife fell between the stairs, vanishing into the darkness with a metallic clatter.

I managed to keep from going headfirst down the stairs, holding onto the slick steps and breathing hard. Nagle had grabbed my jacket and was pulling me toward her, an action I was grateful for as I scrabbled for a toehold. It took a couple seconds, but she managed to get me back onto the landing.

Bomber was groaning on the halfway landing, so we knew he was alive.

Nagle bent down and ran a hand over the edge of the landing, then reached down and felt the first step.

"They're coated with ice. Thick ice." She told me.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking." Bomber groaned. "Assholes."

Nagle and I moved down next to him, moving slowly. The flashlight had landed on the landing, casting bizarre shadows in the stairwell.

Above us there was another scream, almost mocking what had just happened.

Bomber had slammed into a mop bucket that hadn't been there the last time we had been on the steps and the sight of it told us that the ice on the steps wasn't an accident, that someone was supposed to go down the stairs and probably break their neck.

Or get knocked out or injured bad enough they couldn't move and then freeze to death.

"You alive, Texas?" I asked him, squatting down next to him and rubbing his shoulder.

"Yeah, no worse than a bull ride." He said, sitting up.

"I'm going after my knife." I told them, scooping up the flashlight.

Bomber nodded, and Nagle looked doubtful, but she didn't argue.

I looked down the steps, into the darkness, and had a sudden change of heart.

Someone had moved from fucking with us to setting traps.

What was down there in the darkness?

"Fuck the knife." I said, helping Bomber up.

"No, we go after it." He said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Right now we're unarmed, and I don't think we want someone running around with a knife that the whole company knows is yours." Nagle answered before Bomber could say anything. "We need your knife."

I nodded, and together we walked the flight and a half of stairs, taking it slow and shining the flashlight on the steps to watch for any more traps.

At the bottom of the stairs we found my knife, laying on the floor, the matte black Gerber blade waiting patiently for me to find it.

That wasn't what had our attention.

The door to the orderly room area was wedged open, and in the light of the flashlight we could see down the short hallway to the door that led outside.

It was wide open to the snowy night.

Staring at the door and the hallway, I reached down and felt around till I got ahold of the knife and slowly straightened up.

Footsteps were outlined in snow.

Footprints that came from outside and stopped halfway to the stairwell door.

Bare footprints.

Nagle covered her mouth, her eyes wide, and she backed up till she hit the steps and fell on her ass. Bomber was staring at the footprints, his mouth working silently. The wind went from swirling in the entryway to howling up the stairwell a split second after glass shattered high above us.

I couldn't take my eyes off the footprints.

"No. No no no nonononononono..." Nagle moaned.

"It can't be..." Bomber whispered, barely audible over the wind.

"Don't." I pleaded. "Don't say his name."

I knew, right then, who was fucking with us. Who was stalking each of us. Who had killed the four men on CQ. Who had nearly frozen Carter to death.

Carter, the only person still in the entire barracks who had been part of the First Twenty.

Except for me.

I turned to tell them something, anything, to try to deny what the snow outlined footprints told us when we heard it.

Laughter.

Low, bubbling laughter.

I'd read about evil, heard about it from fire and brimstone preachers in my youth, been told I was evil by my mother, and thought I'd seen the aftermath of evil by coming to 2/19th.

The laughter that echoed from the darkness of the stairwell above us was something that made everything I thought I knew about evil pale in comparison.

The evil I'd known before was a small child holding her breath till she crapped her pants because she was denied a pony.

Silence, except for the howling of the wind, descended on the stairwell as we all looked at each other. We heard the rush of footsteps coming down the stairs, the banister began to shiver, and we knew what was happening.

He was coming down the stairs.

We moved into the orderly room hallway, and I turned, grabbed the door, and tried to pull it shut.

It didn't budge.

"Come on, Ant!" Nagle yelled, pulling on my sleeve.

"Fuck this! I can take him!" I snarled, pulling my knife from the sheathe.

"No, you can't." Bomber yelled, grabbing me by the back of my jacket and pulling me away from the door. "Come on!"

"Ant, we need you." Nagle said, her voice cracking with fear.

We could hear him coming down the steps.

We were trapped between the stairs, where something dark and evil was rapidly descending toward us, and the blizzard outside.

"Come on!" I yelled, turning and heading toward the door. We had a chance. If we kept out heads together and didn't panic, we could do it. I sheathed my knife as we headed for the door, the freezing wind bringing tears to my eyes. "Kill the flashlight so he can't follow us!"

"Are you fucking crazy?" Nagle asked, flinching from the wind as the light went out and the hallway went completely black.

"We'll go down the hill to the ski resort! We can make it!" I yelled, grabbing Nagle's hand. "John, grab her hand and don't let go!"

One step out the door and the blizzard took us. The wind screamed around us, slicing through my heavy fleece lined denim jacket like it was tanning oil. Snow smothered me, blinding me almost immediately. My face, ears, and hands went instantly numb. The wind cut through my pants and my balls felt like someone had just kicked me square in the sack, then gave a dull throb, then just vanished.

All of it in less than a heartbeat.

I took a hard right instead of heading straight, reaching out with my free hand to put my hand on the wall of the barracks. I squeezed Nagle's hand and moved as quickly as I could, keeping my hand on the wall.

Forever passed till I felt the corner of the building, and I made sure Nagle made it, then kept moving, the incline telling me we were moving toward the front of the building. The snow made it treacherous going, and I knew if I slipped, I'd lose my bearings as I rolled down the incline, past the building, and possibly across the road and into the German woods.

That's what the killer was. The incline at the sides of the barracks, the 15 foot drop, where it was so easy to slip, lose your bearings, and freeze to death before you even understood what had happened.

I half drug Nagle up the hill, blind, deaf, and numb. I hoped she still had ahold of Bomber, my best friend.

The ground leveled out and I knew I was either crying or sobbing in relief. A handful of steps more and the next corner came. I followed it, until I hit the picket fence that surrounded the lawn of the company. I pulled Nagle close, and reached out till I felt John's denim jacket, then pulled him close too.

"We're almost to the front entrance!" I yelled.

"Thank God." Bomber yelled back.

"He probably thinks we're dead!" Nagle yelled.

"Let's go! Hold onto my jacket!" I hollered back, and climbed over the fence, Nagle holding onto me throwing me off balance. Still, once I was over I remembered that it was left to the front of the building if I faced the fence from the inside.

Not that I was worried. I was starting to warm up.

Wait? What?

Oh. Shit.

Nagle came next, followed by Bomber, and we fumbled along the building till we found the steps and the alcove that led to the CQ area. The wind hammered at us as we fought our way up the steps and pushed our way through the outer doors.

The lack of wind felt like someone had just wrapped me in warm blankets.

We pushed open the inner doors, and Bomber clicked on the flashlight.

The CQ area was empty, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

Moving as silently as we could, we snuck down to Nagle's room. She reached for her key when suddenly Bomber reached out and stopped her.

He shined the flashlight in his own face and shook his head, pointing at first me, then him. Nagle's eyes opened wide, and it took me a second longer to realize what he was saying.

Our rooms had been trashed. God only knew what was waiting for us in Nagle's room.

I closed my eyes for a second, thinking fast, then dug my keyring out, my numb hands clumsy. I moved a couple doors down the hall and waved at Bomber to shine the light at the nametag on the door.

SPC STOKES

I jammed my key in the lock and unlocked the door, quickly opening it and waving Bomber and Nagle in, then quietly shutting the door and locking it.

Nagle grabbed a chair and drug it over to the door, putting it under the door handle to keep someone from opening it even if they unlocked it.

Stokes room smelled of strawberries.

"Tell me this isn't happening." Bomber whispered, clicking off his flashlight.

"It's happening." Nagle said.

"What the fuck did we do?" Bomber asked, his teeth chattering, "Why the hell is he out to kill us?"

"I don't know, but I don't think it's Tandy." I said, moving by feel over to Stokes' bed.

"Why the fuck not? You saw the goddamn footprints." Bomber swore, coming closer to me. I pulled her heavy quilt off her bed, wadded it up, and set it on the bed.

"If it was Tandy, he wouldn't have fallen for it. He would have snatched us and killed us one by one when we were outside." Nagle answered for me. "That's his world out there, we wouldn't have made it to the side of the building."

"Bingo." I said, reaching out and grabbing Bomber by the jacket. "Come're, Nancy."

When she bumped into me, I reached down and grabbed the heavy quilt, a gift from my brother to her, and wrapped the three of us in it. Nagle's arm snaked around me and pulled me tight against her, and a second later Bomber was pulled tight against the two of us. Bomber was wiggling, and I wondered what the fuck he was doing.

"Nothing gay." Bomber said, and I felt his fingers unbuttoning my jacket and then my flannel, finally pulling up my shirt. A second later Nagle smothered a giggle and I knew he was doing the same to her. Then we pressed together, shivering and shaking in the middle of Stokes' room, naked chests pressing against each other. We pressed our faces against each other, trying desperately to warm up our faces.

"What's the plan?" I asked, shaking so hard I was sure that I was going to dislocate a hip or something.

"Your brother's room," Nagle said, her teeth chattering.

"Hey, yeah, doesn't your brother still have your dad's pistol in his wall locker?" Bomber added. He was quaking as bad as I was.

"Yeah, he does. And a shitload of knives." I answered.

"We warm up, take his cold weather gear, take his pistol, grab some knives, then go with the original plan." Nagle finished. She suddenly giggled.

"What's so funny?" Bomber asked.

"This is like one of my best masturbation fantasies, having two guys pressing against me." She whispered, and we all smothered laughter.

"I don't think now is the time to warm up that way." Bomber whispered, his voice mock serious.

We stood there for a long time, shivering against one another, until I suddenly groaned in pain.

"What?" Nagle asked, sounding afraid.

"I can feel my balls again." I groaned. It felt like a ball of lead in my stomach, my balls throbbed, and my cock suddenly felt like it was on fire.

"That's a good sign." Nagle whispered. "My nipples feel like someone tried to bite them off."

"Ha, tough luck suckers, I don't feel anything like..." Bomber suddenly groaned and sagged, forcing me and Nagle to hold him up. "Oh God, someone is squeezing my balls."

Finally we were warm enough, and not in pain enough, to move around. We put Stokes' blanket back on her bed, dug out a towel form her dresser and dried our hair, then moved over by the door.

We listened closely, moved the chair, and eased the door open.

Above us a scream sounded out, but we ignored it and slipped out into the hallway.

"Lock it?" Bomber asked.

"No, leave it, we might need somewhere to run again." Nagle said.

"Good plan." I agreed.

We'd agreed to go to the end stairwell, and we moved quickly and quietly to the heavy door.

It was propped open, and wind howled down the stairwell.

For once it was going to work for us.

We slipped up the stairs, being careful to watch for ice or anything else, and snuck into the second floor hallway.

My brother's room was only a few doors down.

I counted doors, and waited for Bomber to catch up with the flashlight. He shined the light on the door nameplate just to be sure.

There his name was.

I put my key in the lock and went to turn it.

And it didn't budge.

I tried again, both ways, but it didn't move at all.

I went to pull the key out, and it slipped out of my hand.

"What the fuck?" I asked.

Bomber shined the light on the lock, and all three of us groaned at once.

Clear, thick liquid had welled up around my key, a single drop slowly creeping down the face of the lock from beneath my key.

Just to make sure I reached down and touched the drop with my finger, then rubbed my finger and thumb together.

They stuck.

Superglue.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 4

"Back back back." I hissed, and Bomber led the way, Nagle following him, and me pulling drag. We hurried as fast as the frost and our boots let us move quietly, ghosting down the hallway and into the stairwell. Bomber turned off the flashlight and we moved quickly and quietly down the stairs.

The stairwell door was open still, but at least the door across from it that led outside was still chained shut. The end stairwell didn't go any further down than the ground floor, so when Bomber waved Nagle and I back, we didn't go up the steps, but instead ducked down and scooted toward the back of the stairwell, hiding under the steps.

Bomber knelt down, then peered around the corner slowly, careful not to move too fast. After a moment he waved us forward.

Nagle squeezed my hand for luck.

We moved as quietly as we could back to Stokes room, slipping in and checking the room thoroughly with the flashlight after we put a chair under the handle again and locked the door.

We sat down on Stokes bed and wrapped her quilt over our shoulders, snuggling up together. Nagle was shivering the worst, so once again she was between Bomber and me. The cold was getting worse, and we had six men upstairs who were counting on us to do something, one of whom was suffering from hypothermia already.

"He's one step ahead of us." Nagle whispered, her teeth chattering. "This is insane."

"I noticed." Bomber answered. He had both hands jammed down his pants and I followed suit, cupping my genitals and hissing in pain at the contact of my ice cold hands on my already sore genitals.

"We've got to do something." I said. "Otherwise, we're just sitting here waiting to die."

Bomber checked his watch and cursed. "It's not even 0600."

"Are you sure?" I asked. It seemed like a lifetime had gone by.

"It's 0500." He told me, and I stifled a groan. Sunrise wouldn't be until 0800, and the whole time it was just going to get colder. And sunrise wouldn't help, all it would do is turn the entire world white. If we tried to go outside during the daylight we'd be in even worse shape.

"Put the blue lens in and hand me the flashlight, I'm gonna toss Stokes' room." I said, holding out my hand. Bomber took a moment, then handed it to me. I slipped out from under the heavy quilt and began checking over everything.

Stokes was on leave, not at Graf or Bremerhaven. Her TA-50 would be here at least, and if we were lucky, her two roommates stuff would be here.

I hit jackpot in a dresser drawer full of panties.

Keys. It looked like the three women had taken the spare keys for their locks and agreed to hide them in the room in case someone came home and had forgotten their keys or one of them asked another to get something out of their wall lockers and bring it to them in the field.

I opened the wall lockers, shivering in the cold, and almost started crying with relief.

Their extreme cold weather gear was there. To top it off, one of Stokes' roommates worked in the motorpool, so her heavy coveralls were hanging in the locker. I brought out the coveralls, the parkas, the cold weather masks, the field jackets and liners, the parka liners, and the pants.

In Stokes' and her room mates' rucksacks was the mandatory roll of 550 cord. In Stokes' 3-drawer chest I found her leatherman, and their flashlights were on their rucksacks.

When I found the vibrators, I gave silent thanks for big pussied women. Three of them were D Cell hummers. I silently promised I'd never make any jokes about deep or wide women again. I promised that if I got out of it, I'd find a big pussied woman and worship her for an entire weekend. Any woman who used a D-Cell vibrator was my personal goddess from here on out. I promised to sacrifice a virgin to a big pussied woman. I promised to build an altar to them and dance naked around it on the full moon.

We got dressed silently, layering on the cold weather gear, everything but the boots, which didn't fit any of us. We split up the flashlights and Nagle carried the extra one along with the batteries. My knife got transferred from my belt to hers.

Bomber and I both were going to carry entrenching tools.

Not because we thought we were going to do any digging, but because you can kill a man with one.

Something that had gone from drunken BSing theory to a seriously real possibility.

"What if he's in the hallway?" Bomber asked.

"Doesn't matter." Nagle said from behind the mask.

"Why not?" I asked, clenching my fists. My fingers were burning and tingling, a good sign but a painful one.

"We're going out her window." Nagle told us, and Bomber and I nodded.

We opened the window, and jumped out, landing in the snow outside the barracks, trying to keep our balance.

We were tied together by about 5 feet of 550 cord, one end of the cord was tied to the crossbrace on Stokes' window, and I fed it out as Bomber led the way across the yard. We climbed over the picket fence, and I took care of something real quick.

Across the street.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 4 Con't

Zero visibility. The pressure of the wind was forcing us offstep. Breathing was like a knife in the chest it was so cold.

I was letting the 550 cord run between my fingers, keeping tension on it, and I heard Bomber curse as he ran shin first into the bumper of a car. I could tell he was moving around, checking something, and then he came bumping back, pulling Nagle into the clinch so she could hear what he had to say.

"Flat tires." He yelled.

"Roger!" I yelled back.

We went past the cars and started up the short incline that led to our motorpool. Fifteen or twenty feet up, maybe 10 feet from the end of the car. The incline was brutal, but working together we managed to climb it.

I kept tension on the 550 cord in my right hand, my hand dropping down to the D-ring I'd clipped to the parka to reassure myself it was there while I kept my shoulder against the chain link fence that was all that stood between us and the motorpool.

Finally I felt Nagle yank on the cord that connected us, and knew that Bomber had managed to cut through the fence ties on the ground and had lifted up the fencing far enough for us to get underneath.

I ducked underneath the poncho that Bomber had put down to keep the ends of the chainlink fence from tearing through our cold weather gear while we crawled under the fence. I gave thanks to Bomber's innovation and kept feeding out the 550 cord, keeping tension on it. Every few steps I checked the D-ring, just to be sure.

Finally the wind suddenly eased and I bumped into someone's back, stumbled to the side, and felt the side of the motorpool garage against my body.

We'd gone less than 500 yards, and I felt like I'd run 10 miles in full combat gear. My muscles were trembling with exhaustion, I could feel the sweat running down my back, and I couldn't seem to get enough air.

We skirted the motorpool building, looking for the door, until I bumped into Nagle's back. I stood there, in the howling darkness, my feet freezing in my combat boots, so cold that they just painfully throbbed with shooting pains in my toes.

Finally I heard a crash over the wind, and saw light pour out of the suddenly opened door.

All three of us rushed into the building. Bomber threw down the entrenching tool, it was bent wrong, the blade twisted and buckled, but it had done its job. I tied the 550 cord off on the door, then unsnapped the D-ring and set the assembly aside. I kicked the door shut and breathed a sigh of relief.

We'd made it.

It was warm in the building, and we quickly peeled off the cold weather gear, anxious to stand underneath the vents that the huge heaters pushed hot air into the motorpool building through.

All three of us stripped naked, standing beneath the blowers. Nagle still held my knife, I still held onto the entrenching tool, and Bomber kept a lookout, the flashlight still in his hand.

It took awhile, but we were finally warm, and we got dressed in the clothing we'd started with, leaving the heavy coveralls and the cold weather gear laying out on a tool bench right under a blower so it would dry and warm up.

Of course I watched Nagle out of the corner of my eye. I could tell by the smile she shot me that she knew I was watching.

My balls still hurt, or I'd have probably gotten hard right there.

Four CUC-V's, plugged into the wall to keep the fluids warm and circulating, were sitting in the motorpool bays. The sight of them made me breathe a sigh of relief. A quick check of them showed the steering wheels were still locked and they didn't have keys in the ignition, but that wasn't a problem, there were two sets of keys for every vehicle. One back at the company, the other in the Motor Pool Sergeant's office.

"We're fucking golden, Ant." Bomber grinned, rubbing his hands together. "We'll grab one of these, load Carter into it, we all pile into the other, and we go down and tell the MP's what's happening."

"Hooah." I grinned.

Nagle was looking around, shining a flashlight into the dark or shadowy areas of the bays as we headed to the office. She was frowning while she did so, chewing on her lower lip.

"What's up, Nancy?" I asked her, slowing down and looking around. The motorpool bay was big, but it was largely open, anyone coming at us would be seen quickly, and between the three of us, would get royally fucked up.

"We're forgetting something, but I don't know what." She told me. "I just know it."

"Does it matter?" I grinned, pointing at the NCOIC's office door.

"I think so." She said softly.

We moved up to the door and checked it. It was locked, but I slammed the point of the entrenching tool in between the door and the frame, right at the lock, and with a wrench tore it open. We went in, grinning, and I opened the keybox with one good whack with the entrenching tool.

It was empty.

Just a piece of paper that someone had written "MISSING SOMETHING?" in red ink.

The lights cut off, and the blowers went dead.

Between the time the lights went out and the emergency lights cut on, we heard running feet, that dark and evil laughter, and a loud booming noise.

He was still one step ahead of us.

Bomber jumped away from the door, cursing, and I felt Nagle grab me when I went to run into the bay. Her fingers dug into my arm and she pulled me back with surprising strength.

"Don't." She whispered. "He probably knows you're the type to charge in, and he might be waiting."

The realization that my anger and fear had almost pushed me into making a terminal mistake washed over me. Exhaustion, fear, and pain were driving me toward making mistakes, and mistakes were something we couldn't afford.

"We need to get weapons." Bomber said. "We'll grab axes and head back to the company, hole up in Lewis' room till someone comes for us."

"Won't work." I said, shaking my head.

"Why not?" Bomber asked.

"We'll freeze to death by this time tomorrow." Nagle said, and I nodded.

"Fuck." Bomber looked around.

"Wait, I've got an idea." I said.

"Let's hear it." Nagle said, "I'm out of ideas."

I told them quickly, and they nodded.

"Are you sure you can do it?" Nagle asked when I got done explaining it.

"I'm sure." I told her. "Well, I'm pretty sure."

I went out the door first, entrenching tool in hand, my nerves hyped up, but nobody jumped us. We stuck together and gathered everything up, then made our way back to where we'd left the parkas and other cold weather gear.

To where it had been.

The empty tool bench silently mocked us.

"GODDAMN IT!" Bomber yelled.

"No worries." I told him. He looked at me like I'd grown a second head. "Follow me."

We went back to the offices, past the emergency showers and into the locker room. While Nagle stood watch Bomber and I began ripping open the lockers one after another, pulling out the winter coveralls, any gloves left behind, anything we could use to replace our missing stolen cold weather gear.

I watched the door while Bomber and Nagle layered four sets of coveralls on, and put on some of the motorpool guy's lucky/work hats. Once Bomber was done, I went over and did the same, layering them on. More than a few of the motor pool guys had left socks in their lockers, and we pulled them on over our hands until we had makeshift gloves. Before I pulled on the socks, I smeared thick grease over our faces, rubbing it onto our lips and around our necks.

It was thick, bulky, and hard to move. The grease felt sticky and gross, the socks stunk, but it reminded me of childhood, and the memory of throwing snowballs with my siblings made me smile. We waddled back out into the motor pool bay, the emergency lights only giving off a dull yellow glow that was barely enough to see by while we retied ourselves together.

Bomber fished the compass he'd taken from Stokes' room out of his shirt and let it hang from the string. We'd used engineer tape to fashion makeshift loops on our belts for the axes we'd grabbed. I opened the door, and we drug our supplies out into the howling storm. I reached down, found the D-Ring with a smile, and clipped it to the rope around my waist.

This time I took the lead for a little while, Bomber and Nagle dragging the heavy part of the load, until Nagle tugged on our tie to stop me. Then she took the lead while Bomber and I drug it through the snow and gravel. We were almost to the fence when Nagle took Bomber's place.

We pushed our supplies under the fence, squirmed under it, and wrapped the poncho around Nagle, tying it off with a rope.

"Ready?" I shouted.

"Ready!" they shouted back.

I grabbed the 550 cord from where I'd looped it into the fence to keep tension and tugged.

And felt it give. Cursing, I reeled it in, coming up with the end in only a couple of minutes.

Our lead back to the barracks was gone.

Without a lead, our chances of missing the barracks and tumbling down the hill or getting turned around in the snow were almost assured.

Once again, whoever it was thought they were one step ahead of the three of us.

I tapped Nagle, who tapped Bomber, and they gathered close. When Bomber turned on the flashlight and shined it in my hand, we could all see that the end wasn't cut, wasn't snapped, but had been untied.

We had to get back. It was more than just us.

The wind howled with glee and whipped the snow around us.

The cut line snapped against my glove, driven by the wind, and I could see Bomber shake his head. The blue lens over the flashlight gave him and Nagle's faces a bruised look in the darkness and the snow.

I dropped the line, reached down, and grabbed the D-ring and tugged on the line threaded through it.

It held firm.

"Not this time." I snarled, and the other two nodded in agreement.

"You two grab it, I'll lead." I said, and led the way down the hill.

They lost control of the package and it slid down the hill, coming to a stop when it slammed into the bumper of a car. Even over the wood we heard the sound of crunching plastic and breaking glass. Still, a quick checkover in the dim light showed that it was all still good.

Bomber and Nagle grabbed it and picked it up, carrying it across the tarmac. The line on the D-ring was tied off to the fence, and I quickly used the axe to chop through the little white picket fence. After that, Bomber led the way, using the compass, and led us to the edge of the building.

"Stokes' room?" Nagle yelled out.

"Negative, he was in there to untie the line. We'll bust in the center fire escape and then we'll have to take the middle stairwell." Bomber answered.

"Back me up." I answered, and started in on the door lock with the axe. Three hits to rip through the steel lining of the door, and a few more to smash the lock up good enough to pull open the door.

The smell of death and decay rolled over me when I opened the door, the darkness beyond the door more absolute that the darkness I stood outside in. Snowflakes whirled and danced, vanishing into the gaping maw of the door.

I clicked on the flashlight I'd stolen from Stokes' room, the beam muted by the snow howling around us, and stepped into the barracks.

It was somehow colder inside the building.

To the right was the stairwell access door, ahead of us we'd have to go up three steps, but we'd be inside the barracks proper, in the center hall that went the entire length of the building.

Nagle and Bomber followed, Nagle coughing at the stench that rolled over us. The wind outside didn't break it up, but seemed to compact it, to concentrate it somehow in the small emergency hallway.

Once they got the package in, they shut the door, and we stood there for a long moment.

"When I find that bastard I'm stomping a mudhole in his ass." Bomber said, cracking his knuckles through the socks.

"At ease that shit." I said, reaching down and grabbing the package. "Nagle, you lead, Bomber, let's do this."

Bomber and I lifted it up and Nagle led the way through the side access emergency door, which opened with two quick hits with the axe, then we moved carefully down the stairs with the package, trying not to lose our balance with how heavy and bulky it was. Our sock covered hands wanted to slip, and the grease on my hands made the socks both tacky and slick, the metal biting into my fingers. The cold of outside having numbed up my fingers and made them feel like stiff clay.

Nagle opened up the bottom door, and we ignored the shriek of rage from above us, ignored the sobbing wail that rolled down the steps, and pushed into the short hallway and stopped in front of the door of the furnace room.

"Did you lock it?" Nagle asked me, and I shook my head. Bomber was standing next to me, shivering, his teeth chattering loud enough for me to hear it.

I pulled the door open, revealing the cavernous black beyond. A third of a city block long and wide enough for twenty men to stand at arm's length from one another. It was supposed to be designed for our unit to hold formation in during the winter.

Now it was menacing. Something could be in the blackness. Someone could be waiting in there, wearing a pair of NVG's with a knife, pistol, or rifle in their hands, watching us in the doorway with a dark and evil smile.

"Let's go." I broke the silence, bending down and lifting up the package. Bomber nodded and grabbed his side, and with Nagle leading the way, we headed back into the furnace room.

It took us about 10 minutes to locate the water heater we were after. According to the datasheet next to it, the big fucking oil fired heater was responsible for only one thing.

The radiators.

We set down the heavy load, and stood in the darkness for a minute, stomping our feet and smacking our hands together to get circulation moving again.

"John, go through the breaker for this heater on the wall, Nancy, come here."

John clicked on his flashlight, the red lens making everything blood smeared, and disappeared into the darkness. Nagle came up as I stripped off the socks and glove liners.

"This is gonna hurt." I grinned at her.

"Shut up and do it." She said, unzipping the coveralls one by one and tearing open the two vests we'd all layered in till I could see her T-shirt.

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 thumbs and a loud *clack* noise. "How you too doing?"

"He's 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. She quickly buttoned up while I kept talking. "This thing is supposed to be a four forty system, but let's hope that this thing can provide enough power to get it to work a little bit."

I kicked the side of the 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 reg in my life.

"Nagle, you act as my light, John," I said, accepting the leatherman from him.

"Yeah?" He turned and was looking in the darkness.

"Don't fuck around. Anyone comes at us, kill them." I told him. The reflected glow of the three flashlights was enough for me to see him nod, his jaw clenched.

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, and deciding eventually that I didn't know enough about what the fuck I was doing and I had to leave everything hooked up.

Nagle and Bomber were silent, only the sound of their breathing once in awhile 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 laying 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 pushed 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!

I lifted up my hand and bit between my thumb and pointer finger, the pain pushing everything back. Working quickly I took the three phase wire I'd cut away from the wall and drug 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 laying 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.

All that time laying on the concrete for nothing.

"Ant, here." Nagle said, wrapping me in her arms. She wormed one hand in between us and unzipped by 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 wind was cut off even as my cold clothing was pressed into my back.

"Goddamn redneck moron." John muttered. I felt kind of bleery. "Come on, man, wake the fuck up."

"I'm OK." I said after a few minutes. "I think I'm OK.

"Is it hooked up?" John asked, looking at the lashup 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.

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.

"Then we'll get another one in a couple of hours if it burns out." I chattered.

"Let's secure the room." I muttered, still holding onto Nagle. 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 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.

"Once 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 gurgled loudly.

"Feeling better?" Nancy asked me, 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 stairs, the ice glittering in the light of our flashlights, and by unspoken assent we ignored the red ice the glittered with malicious glee on the wall.

The hallway was dark, and we could hear something moan and rattle down the length of the hallway.

Somewhere there was the tinkle of shattering glass.

John led the way, pushing through the doors, and we walked carefully down the long hallway, 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.

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, 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 and swung an axe.

And hit John in the stomach.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 5

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. John's flashlight had fallen so it shone on the snowmen, who smiled at us with empty heads full of snow and secrets.

"Motherfucker!" I yelled, lunging forward.

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.

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 as I stumbled back against the wall, 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 me forehead, but I shrugged it off, trying to wrap one arm around the figure's throat, kicking with my feet as we struggling in the darkness of the stairwell landing.

The elbow hit me again, this time in my nose, and everything went gray for second, my hands dropping limply to the floor as I lost where I was for a second. A blow hit my face again, and pain filled me.

The jet hit, and flames surrounded me, snatching the breath from my lungs, searing my flesh. I knew my hair was gone, and I squeezed my eyes shut, still pounding forward, trying to get out of the fire before it consumed 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 the pressure on me.

I

Their hands weren't quite seated, but I could see the white of their teeth, pulled back in a maniacal grin, in the darkness of the hallway.

Refuse

Nagle was yelling, the flashlight beam skittering around the stairwell, silhouetting the figure's head but not revealing who it was.

To

They figured they'd won. I was on my back, and they thought dazed, laying on the stairwell landing.

Die

My hands came up, between their arms, and swept outward, just as I'd been taught, collapsing their arms at the elbows.

In

In the same motion I grabbed the back of their head in my hands, and I heard them squawk in surprise.

This

I brought my head up as I pulled them down, still roaring in fury. Around me fire roared and people screamed, while the stench of burning jet fuel and roasted flesh filled my nostrils.

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.

Place...

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.

"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.

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...

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.

My thumb pressed into the dent, and I crooked it, pushing as hard as I could, and I felt it sink into the socket, the eyeball squishing to the side.

They screamed that time, the knife falling next to my head, and a punch drove my head against the tile and I was surrounded by flames and dying again and roared with rage back at whoever it was. Still, my arms dropped again, and I knew I was running out of steam. I roared in denial as the flames surged around me and I felt the searing heat on my back, 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 tile. 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. I got the knife up, and got ready to defend myself.

But they were scrabbling away, up the stairs, and I could hear them sobbing as I pulled myself up. Muscles screamed and my vision swam, and I knew blood was running down my face, but I didn't care in the slightest.

I've got you now, motherfucker... hissed through my brain.

I took one step when I heard her.

"ANT!" Nagle, her voice filled with fear and dismay.

My attacker, or her and my (probably) dead best friend?

Dammit

I turned and went down the stairs, stopping when Nagle turned and faced me from where she was crouched down next to Bomber, bent over and rocking back and forth while she was sobbing, the matte black of my Gerber fighting knife in her fist. She looked at me, then turned to face me, straightening up.

"Is he..." I asked.

"My fucking gut hurts." John moaned, rolling over. The axe was embedded in the layers of coveralls.

"Don't say anything, lemme see the wound." I said, falling to my knees next to him.

He was my best friend. He'd been there through everything. Even when I got divorced, he'd been there. With a drink, with a shoulder to cry on, with an outstretched hand to pull me to my feet and support to help me carry on. He was my best friend.

I loved him.

I pulled his hand off the axe and dug my fingers into the cloth, terrified at how deep the wound had to have gone.

And found the axe stopped.

"What the fuck?" I asked, then pulled the axe free.

No bleeding, and I unzipped his coveralls and pulled them open.

The axe had hit the flak vests we'd wrapped underneath the top layers of coveralls.

The vests we'd used to break the wind and to add more padding.

The wide blade, the way John folded around it, all of it made it so the axe didn't penetrate the twin layers of thick Kevlar.

"I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD, YOU FUCKER!" I yelled, fury surging over the relief.

Nagle laughed. Sitting there in the dark, with the wind howling around us, she began laughing. Tears were rolling down her grease covered cheeks, blown to the side by the wind,

I started laughing too.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"It's not funny, my stomach really hurts." John groaned, and I held out a hand and pulled him into a sitting position.

"I thought you were dead, you fucker." I said, still chuckling. The wind agreed, chuckling as the gust wound down and it picked at us, plucking at our clothing and trying to worm cold fingers in with us.

"So did I." John admitted. He looked at his stomach, where there was only a red mark. "Hurts like a motherfucker."

"Be right back." Nagle said, standing up. She shined her flashlight behind the CQ counter before going around it, and checked the handle on The Closet.

I watched her shine her flashlight inside, and squeezed John's hand. I hadn't let go of him, and part of me didn't want to. I watched the doors to the outside, both sets open to the night, and John kept an eye on the staircase door and the hallway door.

Nagle came back, shaking her head.

"What?" I asked.

"Gauges are smashed. so's the breaker box." She told us, and I shook my head.

"It's not him." I told them. "Whoever it was, there wasn't anything supernatural about them."

Nagle shined the light in my face, and Bomber whistled. "Whoever it was fucked your ass up."

"Yeah, but if it's one of us, we'll fucking know." I told her, smiling, "I wrecked him up good enough the he won't be able to hide it."

"We need to get back to the others." Bomber said, and I nodded, scooping up a handful of snow and pressing it on my nose. That made me hiss in pain, the pressure of my hand making sparks appear in my vision.

"Just a second." Nagle snarled, and began kicking down the snowmen. I could hear her panting with exertion, but Bomber and I just watched.

"Now we can go." She said, stepping back from the massacred snow people.

Bomber and I nodded, and we went down the hallway, through both sets of double doors, all the way to the end stairway.

The first stairway might have John's attacker or their friends in it, the second one had been booby trapped before, but so far the third one had been safe.

We checked the steps quickly, shining our lights on the steps and then the landing, but didn't find anything.

"Why isn't this one fucked with?" I wondered.

"They need one they can use to move up and down quickly." John answered as we climbed the steps. He stopped and bent over slightly, breathing heavy. "I think I'm hurt, Ant."

"Drive on, John, it isn't much further." I told him. Nagle pushed by him and moved ahead to the landing, opening the door to the second floor hallway and looked out of it.

"Oh, shit." She breathed, freezing in place. "Oh my God. Ant! Bomber!" She whispered, and the tone held something I'd never heard from Nagle in the years I'd known her.

Terror.

I moved up, and looked out in the hallway.

Another snowman faced the stairs, in front of us.

Its arms were sticks, taken from the trees outside. The buttons were Class-A brass buttons. It wore a BDU softcap with E-5 rank on it. Its mouth was made of something that glinted wetly. Its nose was a shattered flashlight. The eyes were surrounded by pink snow.

Its eyes were blue and covered with a thin sheen of ice.

Its human eyes.

The blue eyes stared at us, hugely round and pushed into the face of the snowman, who's smile mocked us with good cheer. The wet strip was a strip of uniform, too dark for water, that glittered in the light.

It hadn't been here before we'd headed for the motor pool.

"Let's go." Nagle said, her voice only a little unsteady. I looked at the snowman's face again and swallowed around a huge lump in my throat. "Quietly." she hissed.

She led the way into the hallway, moving slowly, shining her light carefully on the walls, on the floor, and on the ceiling.

Bomber and I edged by it, the blue eyes staring at us as we went by, surrounded by pink snow.

Human eyes...

Icicles hung from the tile ceiling and from the plastic covering the fluorescent light fixtures.

Bomber suddenly fell against the wall and vomited, everything he'd eaten the day before coming up in a steaming rush. Bile splashed on the wall and the floor, steaming in the cold, and he started to fold forward.

I rushed forward and grabbed him, pulling him to his feet.

"Come on, John, keep moving." I whispered.

"I'm really hurt, Ant." He moaned as I threw his arm over my shoulder.

That axe had hit him hard, he'd gotten his arms in the way and managed to half catch the axe handle, he'd folded around it and bled away some of the force, and the Kevlar had kept the bit from ripping into him, but I'd seen that swing.

Nagle stayed just in front us, sometimes looking back, as we took forever to stumble halfway down the hallway.

Just a quarter block...

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Finally we were at the door, and Nagle knocked on it and waited. She knocked again, this time harder, and still we waited.

Footsteps thudded above us, heavy deliberate thuds that went from behind us toward the other end of the building.

A scream echoed down the hall, the wind making my eyes water.

The doors the divided the hallway in half were open, or the stairwell door was wedged open. That was the only way the wind could be that strong.

"Who's out there?" Came a voice.

Hernandez.

"It's Nagle, Ant, and Bomber, open up, Bomber's hurt." She said.

There was a moment of silence, and then the locks to the door snapped loudly in the darkness of the hallway. The door creaked open, and I could see Hernandez staring at first Nagle and then Bomber and me.

Bomber took that second to throw up again.

"Hurry up, there's someone out there." Hernandez whispered, stepping back and motioning us frantically.

"No shit." Nagle sneered, pushing Bomber and I through the door.

Hernandez's face was blurry in the flashlight, and if I moved my head too fast I kept getting sparks shooting across my vision. Even the dim light from his flashlight was bright and hurt my eyes.

We staggered in and I heard the door lock behind us. I pulled John into the living area of the barracks room, past the bathroom and wallockers that were built into the walls.

People were huddled in small groups, and on the bed Lewis was still burrowed under the covers with Carter. One of them was snoring, and part of me dimly knew that it was a good sign.

"What happened? where have you been?" Hernandez asked. Nagle ignored him, walking across the room and grabbing the handle of the radiator and cranking it.

There was a loud knocking noise that seemed to start a thousand feet below us and slowly work its way up to the radiator, which trembled and shook as insane howler monkeys beat on the pipes with clubs.

"What the fuck?" Jacobs asked, shining his light in Bomber's and my faces.

"I'll explain in a minute." Nagle said, "Hernandez, get a wet washcloth, I need to clean off their faces." She came over and grabbed my arm. "Ant, Bomber, I need the two of you to sit down on the bed." She gently guided us over to the edge of the bed that Daniels was sleeping on. We sat down and Nagle prodded Daniels till he sleepily scooted away from us.

Daniels...

Hernandez came back and Nagle took the washcloth from him and handed him her flashlight. "Keep it on Ant's face."

Lewis...

"Jesus, what happened to him?" Hernandez asked.

Jacobs

"He got his ass kicked in the stairwell after someone hit Bomber in the stomach with an axe." Nagle snapped, starting to wipe off my face.

Hernandez...

She pulled down my lower lip and swore. "You've got a bunch of broken teeth, Ant." She told me, wiping my lip. "Goddamn it, you're bleeding everywhere and I can't get that fucking grease off of you."

"An axe? They hit Bomber with an axe?" Jacobs asked, looking over at Bomber, who was still leaning against me with his arms wrapped around his stomach. He was moaning softly to himself and rocking back and forth, and I put one arm around him and pulled him close.

"Yeah." Nagle answered, her voice flat and cold. "Someone tried to kill him."

Carter...

"Who?" Hernandez asked.

"How the fuck should I know. Whoever it was beat the shit out of Ant, too." She stopped in the middle of wiping off my forehead. "Hey, Dez, shine the light here." Hernandez did what she asked and she leaned forward, one finger reaching out to touch something that seemed to feel like it was embedded in my brain, that she was poking her finger in there and rooting around.

"Goddamn, Ant, you have a tooth stuck in your forehead, man." Jacobs said, coming over and standing next to Nagle.

"Bastard kicked me..." I slurred. The whole room stunk of jet fuel, but something was wrong. Something important. Both Nagles were scrubbing off my face, two head and four arms connected to one too-wide body.

"I know, honey." She said, then turned to Hernandez, "Wake Lewis up, get his sewing kit and see if he has any rubbing alcohol for spit shining his boots in the bathroom." Hernandez nodded, and she went back to wiping my face, carefully circling my nose. "And see if he has a Leatherman."

"Stomach hurts." Bomber groaned, then leaned forward and retched loudly, bringing up only strings of bile. Nagle shined the flashlight into the small puddle he made and sighed with relief. It was a clear yellowish color.

My stomach rumbled in agreement, and before I could stop myself or warn her, I leaned forward and threw up on the floor, splashing Nagle where she knelt in front of me. I only heaved a few times, and it made my head swim, with bright sparks across my vision and I almost passed out from the pain in my head.

"Oh baby." Nagle said, reaching her arms out and gathering both of us up. She was still dressed in the coveralls, the cold dampness feeling good against my face. I was aware I was shivering, cold but somehow light and fuzzy warm. My head rang, and my thoughts were jumbled.

"What the fuck?" Daniels asked, rolling over. He shoved at my back. "Get the fuck off my bed."

I collapsed against Nagle boneless, closing my eyes. My head hurt really bad.

"Get up, Daniels, Ant and Bomber are fucked up." Jacobs said. "Christ, he's bleeding everywhere."

I felt Daniels moving around behind me, every movement making my skull hurt and ring. I cried out in pain as the bed rocked, and both Bomber and I retched again.

"Help me lay them down." Nagle ordered, and I felt hands on me. "We gotta get them out of these clothes. You two strip them, I gotta get out of these wet clothes."

"I've got some blankets." Hernandez said, and I felt someone unzipping my clothing. I fought, briefly, crying out and trying to get the hands off of me.

I was trapped in the stairwell, fighting someone I couldn't see, with flames roaring around me, people screaming, and the stench of jet fuel filling my nostrils.

I felt lips against mine, and I opened my eyes to see Nagle kissing me, her eyes shut as her tongue grazed my lips. I let her strip my clothing away, marvelling at how it felt like she had four or five hands. My boots were pulled off, and I was aware of her stripping off my wet socks and underwear.

She stopped kissing me and I pawed at the air, trying to get her back.

"Easy, Ant, I'll be there in a second, I gotta undress." She whispered huskily.

"He's got a really bad bruise on his stomach." Jacobs said, and my hands moved down, looking for the bruise they were talking about, and finding that I'd been stripped naked. I rubbed my stomach, looking for sore spots and trying to warm up my hands. Someone laid a warm blanket around me, and I shivered on the bed.

"Dammit, that axe must have hurt him worse than..." Nagle's voice trailed off into a purring noise and I squirmed under the blanket, feeling someone's hands on my stomach. There was silence for a moment, just a buzzing background noise, a thick noise that seemed to increase or decrease at random, but I knew it was important even if I didn't know what the noise was or why it was important.

A sharp pain yanked me out of the memory of Nagle rubbing her breasts on my chest, and I tried to pull loose of the hands that were holding me, tried to pull my head loose from the pressure that was holding the side of my face against the bed.

"Hold him still, goddammit!" someone screamed, their voice jagged broken glass that ripped and tore at my eardrums and then lacerated my brain.

The pain stopped, and I tried to curl in a ball to cry. My mother had been beating me, and I'd managed to crawl under my bed where nobody could see me cry from the welts the belt had left on my back.

Fuzzy warmth wrapped around me and drug me down. It was like I was slipping into warm dark bathwater. I was tired, so tired, and my head was pounding. I could feel myself floating deeper and deeper into the water. There were loud noises around me, but they were distant, remote, just faint ripples in the warm water that surrounded me, cradled me, and drew me into its warmth depths.

You're dying, dumbass... My brother's rough voice suddenly intruded.

My brother's voice yanked me out of the warm water, and I recognized the warm feeling for what it for what it was.

Shock.

On your FEET! My father's voice rang in my head, and I jerked involuntarily as the words my father used to wake us boys up and that were used to call attention to an officer entering the room rang in my head, impossibly to deny. Someone had propped my feet up with something which I kicked away when I jerked. I opened my eyes, aware of how they felt gluey, almost like my eyelids were stuck together. My jaw throbbed with agony, and someone had a hold on my hand and was pulling at something inside of it. My ribs ached, and my head felt like it was full of glass, but I was wide awake, staring at the dimly lit room. Adrenaline flooded my system as I fought that warm languorous feeling.

With a groan I tried to push myself up, and a hand pressed against my chest, pushing me down with a force I couldn't resist.

"Stay down, Ant." A voice ordered.

I'd heard those words, plenty of times, after getting an ass kicking in a new school or when some of my brothers ganged up on me. Three or more on one, and I'd usually ended up on the ground, and when I tried to get up, they always said the same thing. It provoked the same response at that moment as it had in the past, and I yanked my hand free, smacked away the hand pressing on my chest, and sat up, spitting what I knew was a mouthful of blood out and glaring around me.

Instead of a school locker room or the back yard of the house, I was in a barracks room, and it took me a second to realize where I was.

Nagle was sitting on the bed next to me, dressed in a set of PT sweats that didn't quite fit her. She was glaring at me, while Jacobs stood next to her holding a flashlight.

"Are you done?" She asked, reaching out and grabbing my hand. "Stupid boy." She chided. She looked at my hand under the light and sighed. "You pulled the thread out of the needle, you dumbass hick."

"Thread?" I was still a little confused as to what had happened, and I was having trouble focusing my vision.

"You gashed open your hand pretty bad." Jacobs answered. "She's trying to stop the bleeding."

I held still while Nagle threaded the curved needle she had in her hand and then put two more stitches into my hand.

"How long was I out?" I asked.

"It's almost 0800, you were out for about a half hour." Nagle said, lifting up my hand and using her teeth to snap the thread after she made a complex little knot. "Long enough to take care of most of your injuries."

"My fucking mouth hurts." I bitched, running my tongue along my front teeth. There were some jagged stumps there, and I counted three teeth broken off on the bottom and one of my front teeth on the top.

"Not surprised, your lips are fucked up pretty good and I think your nose is broken too." She set the needle down in the small brown sewing kit and then scrubbed her face with her hands. "And I think you have a concussion."

I smiled at her, feeling the pain as the expression pulled at sore spots in my face. "I'm good." I lied. My left eye wasn't focusing very well.

Why is always the left eye in my family? I wondered. Two of my uncles, my aunt, one of my sisters, and one of my brother's all had eye patches. All of them on the left eye. One of my grandfather's had lost his eye fighting in the Pacific.

I looked around at the room. The curtains were drawn over the windows, but at least it felt warm in the room. The other two-way radio was on the desk, Hernandez sitting next to it, staring at the door, with one of the heavy axes we'd taken from the motor pool in his hands. Lewis and Carter were still snuggled up on the bed across from me, but I could see that Carter's face didn't look so pale, even if the one earlobe I could see looked blackened.

That reminded me.

"How's your nipples and toes?" I asked Nagle. She flushed then smiled.

"Nipples are sore but OK, but you, me, and Bomber have frostbite on our ears and toes." She told me. "Your pinky looks like its in bad shape."

There was a crash from above us, then another, then a scream. I looked at Nagle and tried to lift an eyebrow but stopped when the pain in my forehead spiked.

"Yeah, that's been going on the whole time." Hernandez offered.

"How's John?" I asked, turning to look at him. He was curled up in the fetal position, holding his stomach and shivering.

"I think that hit busted up something inside of him." Nagle said, shaking her head. "He's got a bad bruise on the right side of his stomach."

"He's lucky." Jacobs said, toeing the pile of clothing in the middle of the floor. "It should have split him in half."

"Not. Down. Yet." Bomber groaned, and tried to sit up. I held out my arm and let him use it to sit up.

The thing that had been bugging me suddenly crystallized as John sat up.

"Where's Hewitt?" I asked, looking around. He wasn't gathered up in the room, and I doubted he was in the bathroom taking a shower or leaving a dump. Nagle looked around and swore.

"He left about twenty minutes after you did." Jacobs supplied, and I cursed. "What?"

"Daniels! What color are his eyes?" Nagle asked when Daniels looked up from where he was sitting on the chair.

"How the fuck should I know? It's not like we're fucking." Daniels answered. "Why?"

"No reason." Nagle lied, and I nodded.

"Anyone got a plan?" I asked, swinging my feet off the bed and slowly standing up. The world tilted to the left for a moment and I put my hand on Nagle's shoulder to steady myself.

"Yeah, put some fucking clothes on." Jacobs laughed, moving over to the dresser and digging in it.

Oh, right.

I waited till he threw me a pair of boxers, then went and went in and took a piss. My dick was red and painful, and my balls still ached. I winced at the fact that the soft tissue of my penis looked chapped.

"Nagle, check Bomber's dick, make sure it doesn't have frostbite." I said loudly, making sure there wasn't any blood in my urine. With the ass kicking I'd taken during the night, I needed to make sure.

"Oh sure, ask the chick." She laughed. "It looks red and raw." She called back as I staggered out of the bathroom.

"Oh sure, tell everyone about my dick." Bomber bitched, his voice low and pain filled.

"Do we know what the fuck is going on?" Hernandez asked. From the radio there was a steady moaning noise, once in awhile broken by a shriek. The door to the stairwell must have still been open down there.

"We've got a fucking psycho on the loose." Jacobs said. "We already knew that."

"But who the fuck is it? And why are they doing it?" Hernandez asked, looking at each of us in turn. "I mean, I can understand wanting to kill you, Ant, but for fuck's sake, most people don't even know you're in the unit." He smiled at me and tried to smile back, wincing at the pain in my mouth.

I nodded as he continued. "I mean, what the fuck did we ever do to him? This shit is just crazy."

"Yeah, it's just that. Fucking crazy." Jacobs shrugged. "It's not like the unit hasn't had its share of crazy people. We probably wouldn't understand why he's doing it even if he told us."

"He's doing it because he can." Nagle said. "He's getting off on it." She shivered and I knew she was remembering when we panicked down in the orderly room area.

"So what if some asshole is playing games? We can all take him." Jacobs said.

"Except he won't hit all of us at once." Nagle pointed out. "He hit Bomber with the axe and tried to run off, Ant chased him and as soon as he had Ant alone is when he fucked Ant up."

"He cut our safety lead." Bomber grunted, slowly swinging his legs off the bed. "Oh man, my stomach hurts." He retched again, just bringing up a thin string of bile. Lewis was going to have a hell of time G.I.ing his room.

"He stole our cold weather gear, and wrecked up Bomber and Ant's rooms, as well as made it so we can't get into Ant's brother's room." Nagle added. "He may be fucking with us, but that doesn't make what he's doing any less deadly."

"And the stairwell was covered in blood." Jacobs added. "It's sprayed on the wall by the door. I think whoever it was killed someone in the stairwell."

"All right, who do we know it couldn't have been." Hernandez asked.

"Bomber, me, Ant, Carter." Nagle stated. "I'll extend all of you the benefit of the doubt."

"That's all of us." Daniels said. "Shit."

"No, the guys on CQ." I added. "They are either part of this, or got taken out. Someone's using a master key, and when I went down there when all this shit first started, they were gone."

Bomber pushed himself to his feet and staggered to the bathroom, stopping once to lean against the wall lockers and retch again.

"Could it be..." Daniels started, looking around nervously.

"Don't even say his name!" Jacobs yelled. On the other bed Carter stirred sleepily and Lewis raised his head up, blinking.

"No way." I told them. "He would have ripped me apart, or would have killed us out in the snow. The blizzard wouldn't even phase him. Whoever is doing this is alive."

In the bathroom it sounded like Bomber was shitting his guts out. He groaned loudly, full of pain, and we all looked at each other.

Nagle was chewing on her lip, then looked up. "What about 1SG Quinten?" She asked, standing up.

A cold wind blew across all of us at the mention of the former 1SG.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"No way he's still alive." Hernandez said, pointing at the curtains, "The blizzard would have killed him. Besides, nobody has seen hide nor hair of him in months."

I could hear Nagle reassuring Bomber, and heard Bomber retch and shit loudly at the same time.

"Yeah, but he never was found either." Lewis piped up, looking around. "He sure as fuck hooked Till's ass up."

We all nodded. Lewis got up from the bed and grabbed a pair of boxers to match the one I was wearing out of his drawer and pulled them on, then started getting dressed.

"Nobody's come back either, we'd know." I added. "Aside from us, everyone lives off post or over on main post in housing."

Nagle led Bomber out of the bathroom. He looked like death warmed over, and I could see the bruise Nagle was talking about. It was dark red, obvious against his pale skin, just to the right of his navel and going almost all the way across to his hip. He was sweating and shaking, obviously weak, as Nagle led him back to the bed.

There was another crash, followed by the pounding of footsteps moving from above us and fading away.

"I say we go out there, find them, and beat the shit out of them." Lewis said. "I'm sick of the racket he's making."

"Go on ahead with your bad self." Nagle told him. My head throbbed and I sat back down next to Bomber, who had curled up in a ball after Nagle had tucked him in. I was waiting for the dizziness to pass, but it seemed to be getting worse, and my stomach clenched with nausea. I spit blood on the floor and tried to ignore the way my teeth throbbed.

"Hey, I've got to clean that shit up! Don't spit on my floor!" Lewis yelled.

"Sorry." I said. I laid over on my side. "Wasn't thinking."

I closed my eyes for a moment, and felt someone press something in my hand. "Here, Ant, spit in this." Lewis said, his voice a lot more gentle. I opened the eye not pressed against the matress and looked. It was an empty beer can.

"Thanks." I said, closing my eye again and pulling the can to my chest. I could feel someone tucking the blanket in around me, and when I opened my eye I could see Lewis' legs, and closed my eye again. My head was pounding and my jaw was throbbing agony. I kept playing with the broken teeth, each time my tongue touched part of them it sparked agony through my mouth. I could feel the splits in my lower lip, all three of them, and the split in my upper lip at the corner. I'd taken more kicks to the face that I'd thought, or that one kick had been really effective.

I remembered the feeling of the heel of the boot crashing into my mouth.

"Wake Ant up every hour or so." Nagle yawned. "I'm going to take a nap, I'm fucking exhausted. Keep an eye on Bomber, wake him up when you wake Ant. Keep an ear out for noises on the radio."

"Roger that." Jacobs said. I heard some rustling and bed springs squeak. I knew that Nagle was curling up on the other bed, and briefly thought about pushing myself up and snuggling up with her.

"Don't leave the room." Nagle finished, yawning again. "He's out there, and he knows where we all are."

A loud crash from somewhere in the building made me twitch.

He knows... followed me into sleep.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 6

My dreams were full of pain, and I kept getting woken up. I just wanted to sleep, I was exhausted, my fingers, toes, nose, and ears burned like fire, my cock hurt, and my mouth and head felt like someone was kicking me in the face repeatedly. I kept dreaming of my 18th birthday, of fire and flame. In the dreams I inhaled and the fire streamed into my mouth and swirled around in my skull.

When the light shined in my eyes again and someone was calling my name I managed to roll over on my side and push myself up into a sitting position.

"Easy, Ant, easy." A voice said.

Jacobs...

"I'm good." I said. My head was ringing, but my vision wasn't as blurred at as it was. My brain felt like it was working again. I'd gotten my ass kicked by someone on the stairwell pretty good because I'd charged into an ambush. That was nothing new, I'd had my ass kicked before. Hell, my own mother had almost caved in my skull when I was 13 by slamming a cast iron skillet against the back of my head.

"The hell you are." Jacobs answered. "Your face is one big fucking bruise and you weren't too good a little bit ago."

I looked up, and noticed that the room was lit up, the curtains open to reveal nothing but swirling white outside that was glowing with proof that the sun had risen while I was sleeping.

"You were crying in your sleep." Hernandez added. I looked over at him, the pain in my face telling me that I was snarling. He saw my look and raised a hand. "I'm not calling you a pussy, dude, just telling you."

"Yeah. I've been told that." I sighed, and went to rub my eyes. My head exploded in pain and I jerked my hands away with a hiss. "Hewitt back?"

"No." Hernandez shrugged. "Think he's gone?"

"He's fucking toast." Jacobs answered, and I nodded. I looked around, and noticed that a few people were missing.

"Where's Nagle?" I asked.

"Her, Lewis, and Carter went down to refill the generator." Jacobs told me.

"How long have they been gone?" I asked. There was a thump outside.

Jacobs went to answer when there was a banging on the door and we heard Nagle yell for us to open the fuck up. By the time I got to my feet Jacobs had the door open so that the others could get in. Jacobs slammed the door and locked it behind them.

"How's it look?" I asked, moving over to Nagle and grabbing her in a hug. She was ice cold, and I held her for a moment while she shivered.

"Bad. There's not much snow on the ground out there, but the wind is awful." She told me, stripping off the parka she was wearing and dropping it on the floor. "I looked outside, we've got zero visibility out there. Temperature's up, but not by much." She folded the parka up and rubbed her hands together. "And I've got good news."

"What?" I asked, pausing on my way to the bathroom. Lewis was waiting outside the bathroom door, and I figured Carter was in there.

"We grabbed some MRE's out of the platoon's war stocks." She said, and my stomach rumbled. "How's your mouth?"

"Hurts." I admitted, stepping forward when Carter came out of the bathroom carrying his parka and Lewis went in.

"I'm gonna check on Bomber." She told me, and I waved to her. I heard another thump, and started to turn around when Lewis came back out, buttoning up his pants.

I took a leak, noticing it looked like my dick was peeling, and came back out. Everyone but Nagle and Bomber were tearing into the MRE's, Lewis and Carter arguing over the ham slices. I looked over and Nagle was waving me over.

"He's in trouble." Nagle told me when I bent down to her. "Feel." She took my hand and pressed it to his forehead.

He was burning up.

When I took my hand away he muttered and went to roll over, crying out from pain. His eyes opened for a moment, rolled back in his head, and he went limp again. Outside, the thump sounded again.

"I think the hit with the axe ruptured something inside of him." She whispered.

"We gotta do something." I told her, sitting next to her. Nagle smiled sadly and wiped the bottom of my lip. Speaking had split open my lip and I could taste blood.

"What are you going to do, carry him on your back to main post?" She asked, wiping my chin again. "Damn, Ant, he really did a number on your face."

"Could have been worse, he could have stabbed..." My voice trailed off and I looked around the room, pausing from where I was picking up my clothing from the night before. "Where's the knife I was carrying?"

"On the desk." Jacobs told me. I stood up, ignoring the dizziness, and moved over to where Jacobs was pointing. I heard that thump again, but was concentrating on the knife I'd taken from whoever attacked me in the stairs.

The knife was a bayonet, standard issue for the unit, and the number was engraved on the back. The bayonet was someone's standard issue, and I wondered if whoever's it was could have been the one who was roaming around the barracks.

Still, it told me more than a little, and concentrating on it helped clear the cobwebs still clogging my brain. I pulled my T-shirt on and then buttoned up my flannel.

It wasn't who we were all afraid of. If it had been, he wouldn't have used a knife, he would have ripped my guts out in the stairwell, and he would have taken us one at a time in the snow.

Whoever it was, I knew the following: The were male. They were injured. They were a member of the unit. They weren't about to take us on more than one at a time. They had already killed one person. And they had a place to lair up where they weren't worried about freezing to death.

I bent down and pulled on my socks and boots, feeling the pain in my toes and there was a weird feeling that I knew was my pinkie toenail peeling off.

I jumped when Nagle slid up next to me, worming under my arm. I hugged her and kept staring at the bayonet while there was another thump outside. It was pretty rhythmic, so I figured something had torn free and was banging against the side of the building.

"What?" Nagle asked, reaching down and flicking the bayonet with a fingernail. I noticed that the skin under her fingernails was black, just like mine. Frostbite.

"Nothing. How long was I out?" I dimly remembered asking that before.

"A couple hours. You should be resting, you look like hell."

"I'm fine." I answered.

Jacobs laughed from behind me, and I noticed his laugh had kind of a braying sound, almost horselike.

That crossed him off.

"You're just like your fucking brother." He laughed.

I turned from the bayonet, trying to smile and feeling pain in my mouth when I did.

I looked at Bomber, who was moving around on the bed, moaning in delirium, his cheeks flushed. Then at the others, who were all eating, then down at Nagle, who was in the crook of my arm.

I opened my mouth to speak when there was the sound of shattering glass, the curtains billowed out, and Jacobs fell out of his chair with a shout. Cold air billowed into the room, with snow following, and the temperature dropped suddenly.

A hammer was laying on the floor, and Jacobs was holding onto his head, cursing, the MRE scattered around the tile. Hernandez was yelling, and so was Lewis, both of them moving over to the window. Carter had bent down next to Jacobs, trying to pull his hand away to get a good look at the wound.

Nagle had ran over to Bomber, making sure he was tucked in, and I almost tripped over the chair running over to the window.

I couldn't see shit outside but howling snow.

Lewis turned and ran for the door, and Nagle jumped up and grabbed at him.

"Don't, Lewis!" Nagle yelled, right as Lewis reached for the lock.

Hernandez was next to me, looking into the snow, squinting his eyes.

Behind us, Lewis was arguing with Nagle. He wanted to go after whoever had just thrown a fucking hammer through the window. I realized that while you couldn't see too far from the windows, that didn't mean anything. I opened the window, ignoring the glass that fell onto the floor, and leaned out to look.

I could faintly see the window below.

Visibility was around 10 to 20 feet. Not far, but...

"We're going to have to find somewhere else!" Nagle yelled over the howl of the wind whipping into the room. "We gotta get Bomber somewhere warm!"

"Roger!" I yelled back, grabbing the coveralls I'd worn the night before and pulling them on. They were still damp, but they were warm, and I grinned when I felt the stiffness of the Kevlar in between the sets of coveralls.

Lewis had grabbed his rucksack and was busy unlocking his roommates TA-50 lockers and grabbing down the rucksacks. Our unit insisted that everyone have their shit packed for an alert, and it had been winter long enough that the rucks should have been packed for cold weather. At least all 3 had the waterproof bags at the bottom that I knew would have the cold weather sleeping bags stuffed into them.

There was the banging of metal on metal that made me spin around.

The radio on the desk.

"Nagle!" I called out, quickly zipping up the last coverall.

"I hear it." She answered. "You guys head down to the platoon offices, Ant and I have to hurry!" she called out, her hands busy zipping up the cold weather gear she'd just taken off.

I grabbed the bayonet and the knit ski cap that was on the desk while Nagle told the other to be careful with Bomber, not to jog him around too much.

The door opened up into a pitch black and freezing hallway. There was about a half inch of snow on the tile, and the wind blew it around as the currents changed from the door being opened up and letting the wind blow in. My ears and nose started to ache, and pulling the air over my broken teeth made my eyes tear up.

"We've got to hurry." Nagle said, leading the way. She knew I was hurt, that I was slower than her, all the injuries I'd taken stiffening up while I had slept. But she also knew me well enough to know I bounced back pretty quick, and like my brother, had a high pain tolerance.

We took the end stairwell to the first floor, and I led the way, my stomach muscles tightening involuntarily at the thought of an axe coming out of the darkness. Nothing happened, and we quickly headed down the hallway to the middle stairwell. I'd been right, the middle hallway doors were wedged open, and the wind blew down the hallway. Pulling the door open, the wind snatched it out of my tingling burning hand and slammed it against the wall with a boom.

From the darkness below we could hear the impact of metal on metal.

Leaning forward, I put my mouth near Nagle's ear. "Keep back from me, don't come in unless you have a clear shot." I told her softly, and she nodded. I led the way, aware of the blood that had run down off the second floor landing and then down the wall next to me before it froze.

Too much blood for someone to lose and survive.

I could hear the banging below, and knew it was echoing through the stairwell, and I smiled in the darkness. Down below I could see light, and knew that whoever was down there had opened the door to the end of the loading dock, either to give themselves light, or that's the way they'd come in.

Round two, asshole...

I moved silently down the stairs, Nagle keeping a little ways back, and I stopped when I could see the doorway at the bottom of the stairs.

Someone had wedged it open, dropping the chock, and snow covered the floor, ice on the steps. Whoever had done it was beyond, and I could hear them banging on the locks to the basement. I could also faintly hear the roaring of the little 1.5K generator. So far it had held up like a champ.

I tightened my grip on the bayonet and went down the last of the stairs, pausing at the bottom of the stairs, unwilling to blindly charge again.

A parka with the hood up, stained with something dark, Mickey Mouse boots, heavy gloves, and an axe being swung with both hands at the last two locks on the four Bomber had installed onto the heavy security door.

Beyond him the door to the loading dock was wide open, revealing the swirling white of the snow, and I saw a length of 550 cord on the end of a D-ring swinging from the pushbar of the door.

Something clued him in. The crunch of snow, maybe, or perhaps some sixth sense that only the batshit crazy get.

Whatever it was, he spun in place, the axe held in both hands.

He was wearing a cold weather mask, completely hiding who he was, only the strip across the mouth unsnapped and showing bared white teeth. One eye was closed and purple behind the slit and I knew I was grinning at the sight.

I hefted the bayonet, feeling warmth on my chin as I raised the naked blade of the bayonet. His one good eye widened as he saw me.

"Miss me?" I grinned, watching his axe, his feet, his whole body. To use the axe he'd have to get his feet under him right, or he'd overextend.

I fully intended on killing him.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 7

Keep the blade low, other hand in front just below throat level, knees bent, feet apart, be ready for a thrust or slash. Watch his axe, watch his body movement, and watch his eyes. My father's voice, low and soothing, ran through my brain as I dropped my knife hand back down by my side and brought the other one up.

I didn't bother wasting breath on talking, I had nothing to say, all my attention was focused on him. I'd come in low, go for the inner thigh or a thrust near the belly button. He'd be too guarded for a straight under the breastbone thrust, the parka was thick enough that a side thrust might not work.

I'm going to make you scream... I want to hear you scream...

For a long, endless split second he just stared at me, standing in front of him with the bayonet in my hand and blood in my eyes.

I saw his eye flicker a second before he moved, tensing to avoid the axe blow.

Instead, he threw it at me.

Not overhand, not like a lumberjack, but just thrust it away from him so it flew at me.

I dodged it for the most part, but the end of the end of the axe handle popped me in the mouth, sending it spinning behind me. I heard Nagle curse, but didn't pay any attention, everything locked down on the man in front of me.

He whirled and ran, heading toward the outside and the loading dock. I knew better than to try to throw the knife. Even during practice when I was a kid, I usually missed the target or the knife hit hilt first, usually to my sibling's laughter and my father's frustration.

His hand snaked out and he grabbed the D-ring right before he plunged into the whiteout.

"Ant, dont!" Nagle yelled out, thinking I was about to plunge after him.

"Fuck that, he's mine!" I bellowed, sliding to a stop next to the door. I made a "keep going" motion at Nagle, who hurried up to me.

"Ant! Come back!" she shouted out the door.

"Where are you?" I yelled outside.

"Ant! Wait, I'm coming for you!" She called out, then turned and looked at me. She reached up and wiped my chin. "You're bleeding again." We shouted a few more times, to convince him that once again we'd ran out into the snow, and Nagle gave a pretty convincing scream that she let trail off.

We headed back toward the door, and I looked at the locks. He'd managed to smash two of them off the door, but the other two still held.

"That was a good idea." I told her, jerking a thumb at the emergency light where the radio that matched the one upstairs was hidden. I realized there was nothing to do about the locks but hope he didn't get through when we weren't looking, and headed into the stairwell.

"He wants us to suffer." Nagle stated while I bent down and grabbed the axe.

MOTORPOOL PLATOON 2/19 was burned into the handle. I showed her, and she nodded. I handed it to her and led the way up the stairs.

I was feeling no pain. My vision had sharpened up, even though things were a little blurry at a distance, the pain had just flowed right out of my body and while I was a little cold, I sure as hell didn't feel the way I had when I had woken up.

We paused for a moment at the first floor stairwell and looked at one another.

Faint light was leaking in through the shattered windows of the stairwell, with snow blowing in. The liquid on the wall was still red in the daylight, and had frozen up by the top, with long trails down the wall, longer toward the edge of the landing. The top step had blood icicles hanging down from it, and matching small chunks of hardened blood underneath them.

Without a word we both headed up, rounding the landing only after looking at the steps next to us that led up in order to be sure nobody was standing there. Each step was only two inches thick or so, separated from each other by metal supports on each side and the middle. Snow and ice crunched under our boots as we got closer, blood covering the first step down, and completely coating the landing. Blood sprays were on the fall wall, having run down the wall before freezing. The wind from the broken window sliced through our clothing as we stood there, silent, looking at where someone had been murdered.

And then had their eyes cut out...

"Christ, Ant, who do think it was?" Nagle asked me, bending down to reach forward and touching the blood with her fingertips.

"Someone from CQ." I answered. Bloodsmears were frozen in place, where whoever had been murdered had been drug away, and I turned to look at the steps heading up in the wan light.

Frozen blood streaks were on the steps.

Whoever had been killed had been drug up the steps, to the third or fourth floor.

"Check it out or head back to the others?" Nagle asked me, keeping an eye on the small window in the door.

"Up." I grunted, wiping my chin and ignoring the blood I left on the sleeve of the coverall. Breathing hurt, the cold air making the whole front of my face throb.

Nagle nodded, and I led the way, keeping the knife in front of my chest, and checking the stairs the led up from the midway landing to make sure there wasn't another boot waiting to introduce itself to my face.

Only our boots crunching in the snow and ice made any noise beyond the wind screaming through the broken windows. Both of us were breathing quietly, and I knew that Nagle was straining to hear anything out of the ordinary like I was.

The barracks, of course, showed its hatred of all living things as we rounded the landing.

Something slammed, and a scream echoed down the stairwell, followed by a rhythmic hammering that made the air vibrate and punished the eardrums. There was a loud groan, like some huge beast giving birth, and the stairs shuddered under our feet.

On the third floor we found the door opened, and a glance down the hallways showed that there was almost two inches of snow on the floor, the doors between the halves of the hallway were laying on the floor almost covered by snow, and I could see the wind whipping the snow around in front of each doorway.

Someone had opened every door on the floor.

"Up." Nagle said, her voice barely audible over the creaking and snapping of the building. I glanced at the steps, and saw that the blood trail continued up.

And a bloody handprint was frozen halfway up the stairs.

I knew I was smiling again, and I knew that my lips had cracked open from the cold and from my smile, but I didn't care.

We headed up, and paused at the door. It was almost completely dark, the last window in the stairwell about five feet below our boots. Still, we could make out the landing in the dim light. There was another bloody handprint beside the door, and the door handle was smeared with blood. There was a large smeared mark, and I knew that whoever was doing this had laid the dead man down long enough to open the door.

You're up here, aren't you, you son of a bitch...

I pulled the door open, and saw a figure in the darkness in front of me.

They were wearing a BDU cap, and they were short and squat, arms outstretched and gleaming eyes in the darkness.

Another snowman.

Nagle pushed by me and kicked it at the base, the snow exploding outward. The whole thing fell down, and I waited till she got done swearing and kicking it before moving into the hallway after her.

The BDU softcap had E-2 rank on it when I picked it up off the tile floor.

"Nagle, hush." I said softly, and she stopped kicking at the snow.

It was cold in the hallway, but it was warmer than the rest of the barracks. The tile was clean, and there was no ice on the walls or on the ceiling. There was a frozen bloodstreak that led to the right, down the hallway and through the doubledoors that separated the fourth floor hallway.

The building groaned again, and my ears popped as the pressure changed in the hallway. Wind was blowing in from behind us, into the hallway, and I pulled the door shut.

"He's up here." Nagle said softly. I nodded, looking around us. She pulled a flashlight out of her pocket and clicked it on, flashing it around, and stopping on the wall in front of us.

I'M RIGHT BEHIND YOU

was smeared on the wall in blood.

I glanced at Nagle, who giggled, and I shook my head. I pushed past the double doors, confident that Nagle would follow me, back me up, and together we walked down the hallway, looking at the doors as we passed them. Nagle flashed the light long enough for us to see the name.

SSG. SFC. SGT. SSG(P).

This was NCO country.

I knew who the door the thinning traces of blood would lead into before we found it.

SGT(P) JAKES

Nagle looked at and nodded. She'd known it too.

We passed by the room, and I promised myself that we'd come back, heading toward the platoon leader and section leader offices at the end of the hallway.

The doors were locked.

"He's hiding out up here." Nagle said again, and I nodded, my fingertips on the doorknob and pressing on it rhythmically. No reason, just something to do with my free hand while I played with my broken teeth and thought.

"Let's go check on the others." I answered, turning to the stairwell door.

"Worried about John?" Nagle asked as I pushed the door open.

"Yeah." I admitted.

John was my friend. I didn't make friends easily. Acquaintances, yeah. Sorta friends. Sure. But real friends? No. That meant letting them in, letting them know about me, and having to trust them.

My mother and two of my brothers had taught me that nobody could be trusted.

"He'll be all right." Nagle promised as we started down the steps.

The light was dimmer in the stairwell, and I knew we were losing the light. During the winter we didn't get much light. Not as bad as Alaska, or Bremerhaven, but bad enough.

The building groaned and shuddered again, hard enough that I could feel it in the steps. I glanced at Nagle, who looked back at me worriedly.

"This doesn't feel right." She said, stopping me before I opened the second floor door.

"What?" I asked, tightening my grip on the knife and then easing it up. My hands stung, and I wanted to make sure I could keep my grip.

"The building. I think something is wrong." She said, and I glanced through the glass window on the door.

Nothing.

"Uh-huh." I told her. I kept probing the broken top tooth with my tongue. She was right. We'd never been back during a storm, but I hadn't heard noises like that since my dad was stationed at Texas and a tornado had touched down near the house. The barracks was made of cinderblocks and concrete, where the barracks it had replaced had mostly been wood, it shouldn't have been making those kinds of noises.

The second floor hallway was dark and cold, with wind screaming through and pushing the thick snow around. Footprints marred the snow, and the door to the platoon area was jammed open. Light from the windows made it bright enough to see, but I could tell we were losing the light fast.

Looking around, I noticed that the prints all went to first platoon's area.

"Back me up." Nagle told me, walking over to the closet and opening it. She shined the flashlight inside and pulled out a broom. She quickly swept the floor, pushing all the snow to the edge of the room before putting the broom back.

"Smart." I told her.

She knocked on the door, then knocked again.

"Who is it?" Hernandez asked.

"Ant and Nagle. Open up, it's freezing out here." She yelled.

Hernandez opened the door, revealing where First Platoon hung out when they weren't off working. Desks and tables, with large windows opposite of the door.

Smart to use this one. It was off to the side, and instead of the window only being about 20 feet off the ground, it was around 80 feet if you backed up far enough to throw something. Starting about 5 feet from the edge of the building it was a sharp dropoff of almost fifty feet. We'd travelled along the small 5 foot path, and up the incline that matched the one that dropped into the woods.

He'd have a tough time throwing a hammer through the windows.

Just in case, Lewis and Jacobs were hanging blankets over the windows.

Bomber was on top of a mattress that had been put on a table. Hernandez locked the door behind us, and Nagle and I quickly stripped off what we were wearing for cold weather gear. Nagle walked over to where they'd put the MRE box on a table, next to the radio and a big pile of blankets, while I went over and stood next to Bomber. He opened his eyes and looked at me when I reached down and felt his forehead. He was burning up.

"How ya doin', John?" I asked.

"You've got blood on your chin." He answered me. "You eating raw meat again?"

"No, man. I cut my lip. How ya feeling?"

"My stomach hurts. Got any beer?" He said, and tried to sit up. He cried out and fell back, his eyes rolling back in his head. I checked his pulse. It was fast, his heart hammering. I went and got a chair, pulled it over next to him, then sat down and held his hand.

"Eat." Nagle told me, dragging over another chair and handing me an MRE before she sat down. She handed me several applesauce packets. "The guys saved these for you."

"Thanks." I called out. When Lewis and Jacobs turned around from where they were stacking the tables against the blankets I waved the applesauce packets at them. They nodded and went back to work.

Nagle pulled the blanket back while I ate, looking at Bomber's stomach. The bruise was a deep dark red, about two inches wide at the middle and narrowing down to a sharp end on both sides. She pressed gently on his stomach, starting up by his ribs and working down.

He was covered in sweat, and the scars he'd picked up during his life were in stark contrast to his flushed skin. He was breathing fast, and stirred slightly when she pressed down his ribs.

"His ribs aren't broken." She sighed, then moved lower. I looked at his "Don't Mess With Texas" tattoo and remembered when he got it. We'd been drunk as hell, and it was the weekend after he'd fucked a bigfoot, which explained the furry foot beneath it. I'd thought about getting a tattoo, but had passed, preferring to watch him get it and laugh at his expressions.

Nagle's fingers traced down his stomach on the left side, and he just stirred a little when she pressed on the left side all the way to his balls. She grabbed his penis, which was peeling the same as mine, and pushed her fingers into his testicles, feeling around.

"He's not herniated." She told me, and I nodded, squeezing the applesauce into my mouth.

"Where did you learn to do all that?" Jacobs asked from behind me.

"Books. I think I know what's wrong with him." She said softly, then reached over and pressed her fingers hard below the bruise and held it.

Bomber just moaned slightly and shifted.

"Hold him down." Nagle ordered, her fingers still pressed deeply into his stomach. I nodded, and grabbed his arm, dragging it to his side from where he was trying to push at Nagle and leaning on it. Jacobs walked around and grabbed his other arm.

"Hernandez, Lewis, hold his feet." She said. Both of them came over and did as they were told.

She whipped her hand back, and John screamed, long and loud, his voice full of agony. He fought briefly to get loose, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he kicked and fought to get loose.

Then he collapsed, going limp.

We all looked at Nagle, who was staring at John with an expression of sadness on her face.

"What?" I asked, my stomach clenching.

"The axe blow ruptured his appendix."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 8

The light was dimming in the room, and we were all silent, gathered around the table Bomber was laying on. We had him wrapped up in blankets, laying on a mattress, on a table at the side of the room, against a wall. His skin was flushed and he was sweating, his fever strong enough that I could feel the heat rolling off of him. His eyes would flutter open and he'd mumble before lapsing unconscious again.

I'd heard him whimper for his mother, whisper his sister's name, and say both Nagle's and my own name. I ignored the way Lewis and Jacobs looked at me, ignored Daniel's snicker when Bomber kept repeating my name till I reached out, took his hand, and told him I was there. Nagle glared at them when I sat there crying, and when I raised up my head and glared at them they went away and left John and me alone.

When I went over to grab another MRE, Carter came over and stood next to me.

"You doin' OK, Ant?" He asked me in a low voice. With the wind howling outside, making the windows shake, and the screaming and booming sounds inside the building, I knew nobody would hear us talking quietly.

"He's dying, man." I said. "He's gonna die right on that table."

"He'll be all right, you'll see." Carter told me, squeezing my shoulder. "Someone will come soon."

"No, they won't." I told him. "Today's Friday, it's a 4-day weekend before Christmas next week, nobody's going to think anything bad has happened."

"Don't think like that." He told me.

"And you're forgetting the psycho outside." I told him. "Why the fuck were you sleeping in your room with the windows cracked open?" I asked him.

"What? No I wasn't. I keep my windows shut." He told me.

"When I found you, your windows were cracked open, you damn near died of hypothermia." I told him. "I know, I'm the one who found you. Bomber and I carried you to Lewis' room."

"Thanks, I guess." He was quiet for a moment. "You think it's..."

"Don't say his name." I interrupted. "He's the last fucking thing we need right now, with a goddamn psycho on the loose."

"He's out there, you know." He said.

"I know." I answered.

We were quiet for a second, while I tore open the MRE and dug out the jelly.

"You know what happened, don't you?" He asked me. I had the jelly in my mouth and was squeezing it out and into my mouth. I raised an eyebrow, and he went on. "His body disappeared from the morgue."

I swallowed the grape jelly and glared at Carter. "Stop talking about him."

A rumble that shook the whole building stopped him from saying more.

Squeezing a packet of peanut butter into my mouth I turned away and went to sit next to my best friend, leaving Carter standing there with the MRE's.

Nagle sat next to me, reaching out and putting her hand on my thigh as I ate and stared at Bomber. He kept tossing his head back and forth, moaning with delirium, and all I could do was stare at him like a monkey doing math.

"I wish my brother was here, he'd know what to do." I said, shoving the wreckage of the MRE into the brown plastic bag.

"We need to think." Nagle said, her face barely visible in the dimming light from outside. We were losing the light fast, maybe 15 minutes until the world went dark again.

"What good is it going to do." I asked her, squinting. Things were getting fuzzy again.

"Your head still hurt?" She asked me, pulling her flashlight out of her pocket.

"Mostly my teeth." I admitted. She covered my eye, shining the light in my face, then uncovered it, repeating it twice.

"Looks like you slept it off." She told me. "Your pupils are good now."

"You sure, things keep..."

"Ant..." Bomber called out, and I turned away from Nagle.

"I'm here, man." I said, reaching out and grabbing his hand.

"I'd invite you home with me for Christmas but my sister wants to fuck you." He mumbled. He was staring at the ceiling. Before I could answer he sighed and his eyes fluttered shut. He was still breathing steadily, but he was out again.

The room got steadily darker. Outside the room we heard screams, thudding, and crashing noises.

Carter and me kept looking at each other. We'd heard those noises before. Carter kept looking at his hands, and I knew he was remembering, the same as I was, the night the barracks had burned down. How we'd all packed into the two CUC-V's for the trip back, my brother unconscious in the back of the vehicle, Smith clenching his teeth and fists with the pain from his burns. Cobb coughing from smoke inhalation.

And the fact Tandy had vanished out of a windowless bathroom.

I dozed off again, my arms on the mattress and my head on my arms. My teeth and head were killing me, despite what I told Nagle.

I woke up later, the entire room dark, and the sound of wind howling outside. Nagle was leaned against me, her arm around my waist, and I leaned down in the darkness and kissed the top of her head.

Bomber groaned in pain.

Pulling Nagle closer to me, I cuddled up and nuzzled the top of her head. She was my closest friend, aside from Bomber, and having her cuddled up next to me made me feel better.

Someone had been murdered and drug into SGT Jakes' room.

There was only one problem with that. I remembered that we had 3 Jakes in the unit, one female, two males. Sergeant Jakes, who had been on CQ, lived on the third floor, since he wasn't promotable yet. The other SGT Jakes, from motorpool, was promotable, and he'd gone home on leave.

I didn't know if those tracks had been in the hallway when I first woke up, we hadn't gone up to the 4th floor until Nagle and I had headed up there.

And what the fuck was going on with the snowmen?

I shifted and Nagle lifted up her head. Her hand came up and touched my face, feeling around for a moment, and then she kissed me, and long gentle kiss, and I opened my mouth when her tongue brushed my sore lips.

"What should we do?" She asked me, whispering in my ear. "You still smell like grease and rubbing alcohol."

"I've got a plan, but it's kind of a 'fuck you' plan that might not be that good of an idea." I told her softly.

"What is it?" She asked, and I told her quietly what I figured out. She was quiet for a long time. "Very... Kurt Russell..." she whispered, then licked my ear.

"I felt that." I smiled against her face.

"Good. Don't tell anyone else, I overheard Daniels saying that for all they knew, you were the psycho." She told me. "Daniels told the others you could have gotten your face fucked up, and Bomber could have gotten hurt, while we were killing the CQ team."

"Great, this is the last thing we need." I told her.

"Shhh." She suddenly whispered.

Someone was walking around outside the door. Both of us stood up quietly and went over to the door. I heard a door open up, then shut, and the footsteps kept moving. The footsteps moved up to the door we were standing up next to, and I pulled Nagle back.

The handle jiggled, and the door pushed slightly in as someone tried it on the other side. I heard the key slide into the lock and I waited until the door unlocked and the handle moved down. The door started to open slowly and I got ready.

When I heard a single footstep I kicked the door as hard as I could. Someone cried out and I whipped the door open on the rebound. Nagle turned on the flashlight, shining it into the room, and I saw the cold weather mask covered face and the bayonet in the person's hand as they stumbled backwards.

He whirled and ran, his footsteps thudding against the floor, but I didn't go after him.

Nagle's flashlight had revealed the NVG's he was wearing.

Everyone behind me was exclaiming, Daniels and Lewis demanding to know what was going on, Carter yelling that it was Tandy, and Jacobs yelling "Go after him!"

Instead, Nagle slammed shut the door and locked it again.

"We go after him, he'll kill us." She said simply, turning around and shining the flashlight around the room, stopping at each person's face. "He's got NVG's, he's got cold weather gear, and he's got the CQ keys or at least a master key. Not only that, but he's armed with a knife."

She paused for a long moment, the silence broken by a shriek that shook the door.

"Unless someone has a plan, then I suggest we stay right there." Nagle said, then shined the flashlight into my face, then onto Bomber, who lay on the mattress. "He damn near took out Ant, and he might have taken out Bomber, and all of you know he's a tough bull riding son of a bitch."

Nagle reached out and grabbed my hand, walking back with me to the table where Bomber was laying. She sat down, pulled me into the chair next to her, and then pulled me face first into her breasts, holding me tight and shaking.

The room was silent, except for the noises in the building, for a long time, until there was a rumbling that shook the entire building. The building groaned, and I could feel the shaking through the tile of the floor that made me look up from where I'd been relaxing against Nagle's tits.

"What the fuck is that?" Daniels asked.

"If it is what I think it is, we're in a fuckload of trouble." Carter suddenly spoke up.

"What?" I asked, then winced as my teeth throbbed.

"Avalanche." He stated, the word filling me with dread.

"No way, the motor pool is in between the snowpack and us." Lewis said.

"Doesn't matter." Carter answered, "The motorpool isn't that big compared to an avalanche, and the snow would have swept around it real easy."

"You guys ready to admit it wasn't me?" I asked. "Or Bomber?"

"Nobody said it was you." Daniels spoke up.

"Then lets keep it that way." I told him, pulling Nagle close and cuddling her.

"Who is it then?" Daniels asked, "Because I sure as fuck can't think of someone who'd want to kill me."

"Why don't you ask your room mate Hewitt?" Nagle snapped.

"Nobody asked you, bitch." He snarled back.

"What did you call her?" I asked, standing up.

"Fuck you, Ant. I'm not afraid of you." He told me, and I heard a chair scrape in the darkness.

"Guys, calm the fuck down." Hernandez barked. "It's bad enough we've got someone out there trying to kill us, we don't need you two killing each other."

"Tell that fucking psycho to step off." Daniels voice was harsh in the darkness.

"How about I break my foot off in your ass?" I asked.

"Calm down. Now." Hernandez barked again.

Silence fell, broken by the shriek of wind outside the doors. I felt a draft whisper by my face and frowned.

"Who's near the door?" I asked.

"I am." Lewis said.

"Is there a breeze under the door?" I asked.

There was silence for a second, and then Lewis started cursing. "Goddamn it, there is."

"Throw a blanket in front of the door." Hernandez suggested.

I opened my mouth to suggest something else when we heard it from the table over by the MRE's.

Metal on metal crashing together.

He was trying to bust open the door where our pathetic little generator was again.

"Ant and I are going, who else?" Nagle asked, letting go of me. She clicked on the flashlight and moved toward the table where we'd left the cold weather gear we'd been wearing.

"I'll go." Lewis offered.

We dressed quickly and silently, and I handed him one of the heavy axes as we headed toward the door.

"Open it." Nagle said to Hernandez, who nodded jerkily.

The radio was still letting us know that whoever was out to kill us was still trying to hammer his way into the furnace room.

Hernandez pulled open the door, and Nagle's flashlight showed us an empty room. The wind hit us in the face like a hammer, and snow swirled in the room.

I went first, Nagle following, and Lewis followed. Straight to the middle stairs, and we eased open the door. Nagle shut off the flashlight, and we all paused for a second.

The sound of him hammering on the door with something floated up out of the steps, and I led the way down the steps, the naked bayonet held tightly in my fist. I planned on gutting him with the same knife he tried to stab me with, leave him stumbling around with a confused look and his intestines hanging out.

It was pitch black at the bottom of the stairs, and I waited for a second. I could see a hint of motion in the darkness right before there was another crash of metal on metal.

"I'll turn on the light, you kill this asshole. One..." Nagle said softly into my ear. I felt the cold trickle of adrenaline down my spine. "Two..." I slitted my eyes so that I wouldn't be blinded when she hit the light.

"Three." She hissed, flicking on the light.

The light revealed the same guy, night vision goggles strapped over the mask, another axe in his hands. His head whipped toward us, and Lewis shoved me aside to step forward, hefting the axe in his hands.

"We got you now, asshole." Lewis said.

Two steps back, and the guy in the parka hefted the axe in his glove covered hands. Lewis followed him deeper into the hallway. Beyond them the door was chocked open again, and I could see a D-ring hanging on the door again.

Lewis took two more steps forward. "Put the axe down, dude, and nothing will happen." He said, his voice full of confidence.

I knew it was going to happen before the guy even moved, but Lewis didn't even see it coming.

The figure threw the axe at Lewis, spun in place, and ran to the door, pulling the D-Ring free and vanishing into the snow.

Again.

The axe hit Lewis in the face, sending him staggering for a second, and he dropped the fireaxe he was holding, his hands going to his face.

"Motherfucker!" Lewis yelled.

And ran out into the snow.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 9

"Lewis!" I shouted as he disappeared into the snow. "Goddamn it, Lewis!"

Nagle and I ran forward as a loud scream sounded out, and skidding to a stop at the door. Lewis was still screaming, and the wind blew the snow into our faces from out in the darkness.

Rich deep laughter, full of something that made goosebumps raise on my back, rolled out of the darkness and over us, audible even over the screaming. Nagle and I looked at each other, and Nagle's eyes were wide with her pupils open. She looked vulnerable suddenly, and the idea of tough as nails smart as a whip Nagle frightened chilled me even more.

Nagle had been a rock to lean on since she'd gotten to the unit, and like John, she'd been there during my divorce, had been there when I was so hurt, and had held me as I cried from the pain and agony that filled me. She was tough, had four years in the military before I ever met her, and was braver than hell, willing to back me up when even some of the others wouldn't be there. Her being frightened made something in me turn small and afraid.

Lewis screamed again, a sound of agony, and Nagle bit her lower lip as she looked at me.

"Stay here." I told her and she nodded, and got down on my hands and knees to start to crawl into the snow.

Less that 10 feet into the snow and I felt the edge of the loading dock. Lewis was screaming louder now, or maybe I was just closer to him. I slid off the loading dock, squinting my eyes as the snow blew into my face and numbed my cheeks, earlobes, and nose. I knelt down in the snow and crawled forward, reaching out with my hands.

Lewis' screams jangled my nerves, and my imagination conjured the guy in the cold weather mask using a blade on him, carving on him with a bayonet.

Carving his eyes out...

My hand bumped something, and Lewis screamed even louder when I grabbed it in the darkness and pulled on it right when my brain identified it as a shoe. He kept screaming, sobbing screams of animal agony as I moved up the leg.

It was bent wrong, and I could feel something sharp and hard underneath the cold weather pants he was wearing. Moving further up him he grabbed my wrist, first trying to bat my hands away, then grabbing onto me and pulling on me.

"For fuck's sake, stop screaming!" I yelled, grabbing him by the chest.

"My fucking legs, oh God, my fucking legs!" he screamed.

I moved behind him, grabbing his collar, and started dragging him back the way I'd come. He was screaming, begging me not to move him, pleaded with the simple "don't" as I first drug him around and then pulled him through the snow.

The loading dock should be behind me.

I kept pulling, through the darkness and snow, bent over and dragging Lewis, who lapsed into silence by the third step. I knew his legs had twisted around, but there wasn't shit I could do about.

Another little sliding half step, the wind trying to knock me over.

I couldn't hear shit, and started to lose where I was. I couldn't be too far from the loading dock, could I? I only crawled forward for a few moments, Lewis couldn't have gone that far off the dock before he hit and broke his legs, could have he? He couldn't have crawled far on those legs, could have he?

Another step, and still nothing behind me.

Was I heading the wrong way? Was I going to suddenly lose my balance and fall backwards, to roll down the hill and vanish into the woods? Was I crossing the parking lot away from the building instead of toward it?

Had I killed us both?

Where was the goddamn loading dock?

Another step, leaning back, and my ass hit something solid, bouncing me forward and I lost my balance in the dark and wind. I pitched forward, landing partially on Lewis, and my hand hit something soft right before I went face first into the pavement with a bright white flash. Lewis jerked and screamed, punching me in the side, and I accidentally kneed him as I pulled myself to my feet, keeping hold on his collar. He screamed, weakly, and stopped.

I slid my arms underneath him and lifted, my teeth pounding and making my eyes water. I heaved him up on the loading dock, and he rolled out of my arms, screaming and flailing. He backhanded me across face and my knees when out, making me collapse on the ground. I twitched, confused, trying to figure out where I was, and pulled myself up. Lewis' scream reminded me, and I climbed up after him and squatted down next to him, digging my hands in his collar.

"Nancy!" I yelled. I knew my voice was a half-hysterical scream. I had to find Nancy.

"Ant!" I heard, but couldn't tell which way it came from, the wind whipping it around me and pulling it away.

"Nancy!" I screamed, pulling Lewis against the building. I couldn't feel my fingers or feet, and my face was completely numb, only sparks of pain where my ears should be. Somehow things seemed to have gotten darker, and my mouth was raw intolerable agony.

I reached out and touched the wall, then began pulling Lewis to the right with one hand, knowing that it couldn't be too far until I hit the end of the loading dock. I moved slowly so that I didn't pitch over backwards and break my head on the asphalt.

You've killed both of you, you idiot... hissed through my brain, but I shook it off and took another step backwards.

If he came at me right then, in the snow, he'd fuck me up, probably kill Lewis too, before I'd even know he was there. My brain summoned him up coming out the darkness at me, stabbing me in the kidneys, grabbing me and slitting my throat, burying an axe in Lewis and then me, pushing me backwards down the hill and letting the snowstorm take care of me.

Suddenly I realized that I'd been standing there in the dark and snow, unmoving, while my brain played out all the ways the guy could kill us.

A hand clawed out of the darkness, grabbing my collar, and pulling me.

I screamed, batting at it with one hand as I tried to drag Lewis away with the other, trying to lunge away from the hand and into the safe concealment of the snowstorm, but the hand had a hold on my collar too hard and drug me toward the owner of it.

Struggling with one hand against my attacker I was pulled into the hallway, out of the snow, and into the light of Nagle's flashlight. She was staring at me, her cold weather cap pulled down to hide her auburn hair, and she pulled me close.

I threw my arms around her, shivering with cold and relief, and held onto her tight.

"Don't ever do something that stupid ever again." She growled into my ear, hugging me tightly.

"I got him. I got him, Nancy." I kept repeating, holding tight to her. "I found him out there."

"Drag him in." She ordered, letting me go. I nodded dimly, bent down, and grabbed him before staggering a few more steps back, pulling him across the wet floor. In the light of Nagle's flashlight I saw that he was leaving a streak on the floor, and that both of his legs were twisted wrong. I managed to get him clear and Nagle slammed the door shut with a boom before turning back to us. I kept dragging Lewis back, dimly trying to get him away from the doorway, not really sure where I was going.

When I looked up and saw the yawning opening of the furnace room I jerked back, dropping Lewis and staring at the furnace room.

I could smell decay thickly, and something moved further in the darkened room, an inhuman roar rolled out of the doorway and hammered at me.

I screamed, backing away from the wide opening where some unimaginably large creature was roaring.

Nagle appeared in front of me, shaking me, and I tried to fight her off for a moment, my head swimming and sparks shooting across my vision. She shined her flashlight in my eyes, then snapped it off with a curse.

"Sit here." She told me in the darkness, pulling me down on the floor. I nodded and went limp, aware of how nice it was that the wind was gone, how warm it was getting in the stairwell. I felt like I was burning up, and bright sparks appeared in my vision as I sat in the darkness.

There was a tooth jarring whining noise, and I looked up blearily, my fingers fumbling on the buttons for my jacket. Nagle was putting on another hasp with the drill, and while I watched she tossed the drill into the darkness and pulled the door shut, cutting off the roar of the beast in the darkness of the room.

I'd managed to get the jacket open and was trying to get out of it when Nagle finished snapping new padlocks onto the hasps. By the time she turned around, I'd stripped off my shirt, panting with the heat filled the hallway.

Nagle turned around and stared at me for a moment, then leaned down and lifted my head up, shining the flashlight in my eyes. She pulled my shirt back down, her mouth opening and closing and making strange noises that I couldn't understand.

I tried to fight while she pulled my jacket back onto me, buttoning it up, paying no attention to me trying to tell her I was hot, that it was too hot in the hallway. I closed my eyes.

Out of the blue she slapped me, the back of her hand biting into my broken teeth and splitting back open my lips. My eyes popped open and I reached for her, but she batted my hands aside and stood up.

"ON your FEET!" She bellowed, and I jumped up, swaying for a moment, the urge to punch her in the face blowing away the sleepiness. I shivered for a second in the cold and stared at her.

"Grab him up, soldier." She snapped. I glared at her. "Now!"

Feeling anger dully pulse at my temples, I bent down and picked Lewis up, still glaring at the woman in front of me. She snorted and turned away, heading up a set of stairs. She turned and looked at me then barked "March!" at me. I followed her up, glaring at her back as she called out the steps.

She held open the door, and I followed her into a dark hallway, lit only by the flashlight she was carrying in her hands. Once we hit the double doors she held them open long enough for me to stagger through with my burden.

"March, soldier." She snapped at me, and I snarled at her as we headed down the hallway, passing open doors where wind and snow was blowing in the rooms beyond. The next double doors were held long enough for me to get through, and the wind almost knocked me over, making me stagger, but I followed her to the next door.

"Open the hell up!" The woman (was she an officer? Who the hell was she? Who the fuck did she think she was, screaming orders at me? She wasn't even in my chain of command) bellowed, hammering on the doors.

The doors opened up and the woman pulled me through and into the room.

"Set him on the table." She told me, and I nodded jerkily. The woman was familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I staggered over to an empty table and set the guy I was carrying down on it.

The woman grabbed my arm and pulled me over, sitting me down in a chair.

"Ant, do you recognize me?" She asked, flashing a light in my eyes. I winced, mumbling at the pain. "Ant. Do you know who I am?" She asked again, and I shook my head.

Doing that was a mistake as I suddenly leaned forward and threw up on the floor, my head swimming. I would have fallen forward except for someone was holding onto me, holding me while each heave caused pain to explode in my head. I was vaguely aware I was shivering while someone was holding onto me.

Someone wrapped something warm around me, and I shivered as I suddenly became aware I was freezing. I was being guided up, and after a few stumbling steps I was aware of hands laying me down on something hard.

"Keep him awake, I gotta make sure Lewis survives." A woman said, her voice tearing into my ears and scrambling my brains. Sparks shot through my vision again, and I was aware I was shaking under the blanket someone had just put down over me.

I kept trying to go to sleep, to let the warmth and darkness pull at me, but every time I tried I got jerked back to half wakefulness by lights in my face, being shaken which made me almost heave all over again.

Someone was screaming, and I could hear someone else shout "Hold him, goddamn it." over the screams. Then the screams finally broke off, and I was glad that whoever it was finally shut up.

My clothing was stripped off, and I was wrapped with a warm blanket that felt like someone had wrapped me in warm clouds. When the damp cloth touched my face I tried to push the hands away, mumbling through my swollen lips and broken teeth.

"Hold him down." I heard a voice, Nagle's voice, order, and hands grabbed my arms and legs. I felt swiping motions on my face, and I was finally able to open my eyes when the cloth passed over them. There were lights set up, and the room, even though it was dim, was bright enough it made my eyes water.

Nagle was wiping my face off with a hand towel that was covered in blood.

"Nancy." I managed to push past my broken teeth.

"Welcome back, Ant." She said, stepping back. "Can you sit up?"

I grunted and used an offered hand to pull myself up, ignoring the way my head swum and my stomach heaved. I swung my legs off and stared at the floor, waiting for it to stop moving. After a few moment I stood up, my bare feet striking the cold tile floor. I got dressed quickly, pulling on my damp Levi's and my shirts

"Sit down, Ant." Jacobs told me, coming over to me while I was lacing up my combat boots.

"How's Lewis?" I asked, staggering over to the chair I wanted and sitting down.

"Nagle saved him." Jacobs told me. I grunted and reached out touch Bomber's forehead. He was still running hot, his skin slick with sweat. "He broke both of his legs. What the hell happened down there?"

"He fell off the loading dock." I answered, probing at my broken teeth with my tongue.

"Who's out there?" Jacobs asked.

"How should I know?" I snarled. Why the fuck wouldn't he go talk to someone else. I wanted to sit next to my best friend, fuck everyone else.

"Ant, I want you to get some rest." Nagle said, coming over and putting her hand on my shoulder.

"I'm all right." I lied. The sparks were gone and my vision had settled down, even though the dim light made everything past a few paces kind of fuzzy.

She held up three fingers. "How many?"

"Three." I answered. She nodded and smiled.

"Hold still, you got something on your lip." She told me. She leaned forward and kissed my lower lip, and when she pulled back I could see she had blood on her lip. "That hurt?"

"Nope." I lied again, smiling.

"All right. I need you to stay here, watch Bomber and Lewis." She told me, then stood up. "Listen up, we've got to shut some of the doors and windows, or we're not making it through the night."

"Who put you in charge?" Daniels snarled.

"Nobody, if you don't want to go, then stay in here with Ant and Lewis." She snapped. "Are any of you going to come with me?"

"I will." Hernandez answered.

"I'm with you, Nagle." Jacobs threw in.

"I got your back." Carter finished, walking over and picking up an axe.

"I'm in." I said, standing up.

"The fuck you are." Nagle told me, grabbing my arm. She tried to steer me to a table where a few blankets were spread out. "Get some sleep."

"No." I answered, shaking her hand off my arm.

"Ant..." Nagle tried.

"No. He killed my fucking best friend." I stared at her. "Give me my knife."

She looked doubtful but took my knife off of her belt and handed it to me. I clipped it to my belt and stared at her.

"What's your plan?" I asked.

"We go out, shut the windows and doors on the this floor, and the hallway doors. We've got to cut down the wind or we're going to freeze to death before morning." She told me, then looked beyond me. "Ready?"

The others told her they were, and I nodded.

Everyone turned on flashlights, I dropped mine into the top pocket of my Levi jacket, and Nagle moved over to the door.

"Stay together, don't go charging off, and watch carefully." Nagle told them. "This guy is strong, he's fast, and he's willing to kill."

I heard Daniels scoff in the darkness and had to restrain an urge to go back there and cut his fucking throat.

Nagle opened the door, our flashlight beams lighting up the platoon area in front of us.

The room beyond was windswept and full of wind driven snow. I blinked my eyes, trying to keep snow out them, as the wind drove the snow into the room behind me.

"Let's go." Nagle said, heading toward the hallway door.

I stumbled after and told myself it was the wind pushing me off balance.

"Why is this one shut?" Jacobs asked, reaching toward the door handle.

"Don't." I told him, grabbing his wrist. I looked at the door the shiver that ran through me had nothing to do with the biting cold.

"Aren't you going to check this room?" Jacobs asked, glaring at me and snatching his hand free. "Nagle said to check every room."

"Jacobs, you don't want to go in there." Carter said, stepping away from the door. I followed suit, watching as Jacobs looked at each of us.

"What the fuck is in there?" Jacobs asked, following when Carter and I headed into the next room to close the windows.

"We don't know." Carter answered, shutting the windows.

There was no use taking the blankets on the beds, I could tell with a single glance. Water had been poured on the beds, turning the blankets into solid ice. It had been the same way in every room, clothing piled on the floor with water poured on them, the beds soaked sometimes before.

It was a standard tactic of warfare. Deny the enemy supplies and material.

When we closed the door, Carter swung the axe and knocked the door handle off. I pushed at the door, but like the others so far, it didn't budge.

Behind us, there was a knock at the door.

All of us spun around and stared at the featureless door, only the room number and the door handle breaking up the expanse of brown paint.

There was another knock from inside the room, hard enough to shake the door.

Jacobs reached for the door, and Carter grabbed him before I could.

"You don't want to do that." He told the other man. "Come on, let's finish the rest of this section."

I could tell Jacobs wanted to ask about it, ask why we didn't go into the room or check it at all, but he closed his mouth and followed when we went to the next room. Hernandez and Nagle were down on the other end of the hallway, doing the same thing we were, closing windows and doors and knocking the door handle off.

Deny the enemy.

I glanced back over my shoulder at Room 221 when the knocking sounded again.

Fuck that room.

A little more work, and we met up with Nagle and Hernandez, Nagle holding the axe and glaring around at the ice glittering on the walls. Hernandez was dragging a mattress with other mattresses piled on it.

"We lucked out, he missed a couple of mattresses and I managed to find some blankets and sleeping bags." Nagle said. "We need to get back. I need to check on Bomber and Lewis." I nodded, leaning against the wall. The whole front of my face hurt.

"Why can't we just go looking for him?" Jacobs asked, looking around.

"Because he's one step ahead of us the whole way." Nagle answered. "He's thought this through, he knows the people he's stalking, and he knows that some of our first instincts will be to go on the offensive."

She looked at each of us, her gaze lingering on me a moment longer.

"He's not stupid enough to forget he's hunting trained soldiers." She finished.

I nodded dumbly, and followed when she started heading back. "We're down two men, three if you count Ant, he's killed four men as far as we know, and we're cut off and isolated." She paused at the doors to the platoon area and looked at all of us. "And every time we've charged after him, we've come out second best."

She banged on the door, but nobody answered. She hammered on the door again.

"Open the goddamn door!" She shouted, banging on the door again.

Still nothing.

"Open this goddamn door or I'll kick it down!" She bellowed, hammering on the door, this time with the haft of the axe.

Still nothing.

"Fuck this, Ant, kick it in." She snarled, and I stepped forward.

The door whipped open, and Daniels stood there, holding onto the axe and staring at us wild eyed.

"Get in, for fuck's sake, hurry up!" He yelled, staring past us.

"What?" Nagle asked, coming in. She grabbed his face when he didn't answer. "What happened?"

I ignored them, moving up next to Bomber and staring down at him. When I touched his face, his eyes opened.

"Hey, Ant." He smiled.

"How you feeling, John?" I asked. His skin was flushed, sweaty, and burning hot.

"Not too bad. My stomach hurts pretty bad." He told me.

Behind me Daniels was telling Nagle that someone had been laughing and hammering on the doors, mocking him and trying to lure him out by being quiet. How the guy had kicked at the doors, laughing at him.

"Your appendix burst." I told him.

"Fuck. I've got..." He paused for a second, and I expected him to lapse into delirium again, but he continued after a moment. "Maybe eight days from when it burst."

"Where do you get that idea?" I asked.

"My dad. He didn't know what was wrong with him, and my grandmother didn't take him to the doctor for eight days." John told me. He coughed and groaned. "You all right? Your face looks like hell."

"That's how I normally look." I answered, and he laughed.

"Ant, help me get up. I really gotta shit." He told me.

When I helped him up, Nagle immediately came over, yelling at me to lay him back down. It took a minute of arguing, but she agreed to let me take him to the bathroom.

I stood next to him while he took care of business, then helped him back out into the main room. He was breathing hard, but had managed to straighten most of the way up.

"You catch that fucker who hit me with the axe?" He asked.

"Yeah. He's the one who did this to my face." I answered.

The mattresses had been pulled to different spots, Lewis laying on one, and Nagle was sitting on where two of them had been pushed together along with a pile of blankets. Daniels was over by the door, sitting on the floor, with an axe in his hands.

"Come on, let's get some rest." I told him, guiding him over to Nagle.

He nodded, crying out when he laid down, and Nagle made me lay behind him, then piled the blankets on us and slid underneath behind me, wrapping her arms around me from behind.

"I've got you, Ant." She whispered, "I'm not going anywhere."

"I love you." I told her.

"I know, Ant." She said, hugging me.

I dozed off, exhausted, my face throbbing. I'd barely gotten any sleep, and for the first time in as long as I could remember nobody kept waking me up and shining lights into my eyes.

------------------------------

Metal clanging against metal woke me, and I sat awake, yelling out "GAS GAS GAS" and grabbing for a mask that wasn't there. Adrenaline flooded my system, and I held my breath as I fumbled at my waist. Just a second before I'd been struggling through fire and death, and the next second I was trying to get a mask on before the lethal toxins burned out my life in 19 seconds flat.

The clanging noise was coming from the radio on the table.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"Nagle." I hissed, reaching down and shaking her.

"Go jerk off, Ant, I'm not horny." She mumbled, rolling over.

"ON your FEET!" I bellowed out, climbing up.

Bomber and Lewis both screamed as they tried to answer ingrained habit and get up. Bomber managed to get all the way to his feet, standing there swaying, while Lewis grabbed his legs, sobbing in pain. Everyone else jumped to their feet, and I could tell that the clanging hadn't penetrated anyone's mind but mine.

I moved over and grabbed my jacket, pulling it on quickly, and turned around, making sure my knife was on my belt.

"He gets in there and kills our generator and we're dead." Nagle said, standing up. Her nipples stood out from her T-shirt and I had an image of nuzzling them with my nose flash through my mind.

"Who's coming with me?" I asked, buttoning up my jacket and grabbing one of the cold weather caps.

"I'm with you." Jacobs said. "I'll beat that motherfucker's ass."

"Ant, stay here." Nagle said, pulling on her fluffy jacket. "Stay with John and Lewis."

"No. You stay back, they need you more." I told her. She opened her mouth and then glanced at Bomber, who was pulling on his pants. "John, you need to lay down or you might tear something up in there." She said softly, moving over to him and touching him. John looked up, his face pale with red spots on his cheeks. His eyes were glassy.

"Gonna help. Not down yet." He slurred. You could see the fever burning in him.

"I'm with you, brother." Hernandez said, pulling on the parka.

"Bomber, I need you to protect Nancy and Lewis in case he loops around." I said, and Bomber nodded.

"Let's go." I said, and Hernandez unlocked the door and pulled to open.

Outside of the door a figure loomed, arms outstretched, leaning toward the door.

Jacobs stepped forward, swinging the axe he was holding, the heavy bit striking the figure in the chest with a solid thunk as the axe went home. Snow exploded outward, and Jacobs stumbled forward, cursing.

The snowman's head fell off, the BDU softcap plopping into the snow, and we stood there for a second, staring at the snowman that Jacobs had just taught not to fuck with him.

"What the fuck was that?" Jacobs yelled.

"He's fucking with us, it's supposed to scare us." I said, moving past the snowman's remains and scooping up the BDU cap. E-3 rank. "We need to hurry."

Jacobs pushed past me, slogging through the snow that had blown in through the broken windows of the platoon area, his feet kicking up sprays in my flashlight. He pushed through the doors and into the hallway, and I hurried to catch up with him.

"Jacobs," I called out, and the other man slowed down, the axe swinging from his hand as he walked, "The second floor landing is covered in ice and blood, so watch out."

"Ice, yeah." Jacobs sneered. "Anything else you want to tell me before we kill this asshole?"

"Be careful, and lets try to sneak up on him." I told him. Jacobs scoffed as we approached the double doors. He pushed through, and pulled open the door to the stairwell. The blood glittered darkly and I tried to ignore it.

Jacobs hurried down the steps, rushing ahead, the axe held in both hands. We went past the first floor, the banging of our friendly barracks psycho covering our approach. Jacobs didn't pause at the next landing, swinging around the landing and stepping forward. He was grinning, as he went to step down the first step.

And hit the wire across the step.

The ice on the wall broke away as his foot caught the wire, and he yelled as he pitched forward, throwing out his hands to catch himself, the axe vanishing into the darkness of the stairwell.

"Jacobs!" I yelled, Hernandez echoing me as I moved down the stairs.

The banging quit.

In the beam of my flashlight Jacobs landed face first on the floor, stunned, his legs twitching.

Two steps, still yelling for him, and it happened.

Jacobs had just lifted his head up, one hand reaching forward, his foot still kicking as he tried to get purchase. I was four steps down, risking taking two icy steps at time, Hernandez was right behind me, trying to get to Jacobs and help him up.

I thought the guy would take the chance to run, to disappear back into the snowstorm again. Throw the axe, whirl around, grab the D-Ring off the door, and vanish into the blizzard, to taunt us further.

I was wrong.

The axe blurred out of darkness, coming from high up, through the doorway, the frost on it sparkling in my flashlight light. I could see the sharp edge of the axe, read MOTORPOOL - 2/19 SW on the handle, see the heavy gloves wrapped around the end of the axe handle.

It was frozen in time for a long second.

Right before it his Jacobs just below the neck, dead center in the back, the sound of the axe biting through flesh and shearing through bone obscenely loud in the windy hallway.

Jacobs feet jerked, and his hands scrabbled at the tile.

I was yelling in denial, trying to move faster through the molasses that had seemed to crystallize around me. Hernandez was yelling Jacobs' name, both of us trying to get down the stairs.

The hands released the axe handle, and the wind shrieked around us, matching Jacobs' strangled scream.

My feet hit the landing, and I jumped over Jacobs, seeing the figure ahead of me in the beam of the flashlight clipped to my jacket pocket.

Once again he had on the cold weather mask, NVG's, a parka, and heavy gloves. His Mickey Mouse boots squeaked as he pivoted, a perfect rear march my brain told me, and he reached his hand out for the D-Ring hanging off the door.

"Nagle, we need you down here now!" I bellowed in the split second I made my decision.

I spun around, jumping past Jacobs, pushing Hernandez out of my way, brushing his hands off when he tried to grab me.

"Don't leave us, Ant!" Hernandez yelled as I ran up the stairs, "Come back!" followed me as I spun around the landing that the guy had wired, and pounded up to the first floor.

"Goddamn you, Ant, you coward!" chased me as I kicked open the door, grabbing the door jam to give me speed. I shouldered through the double doors and ran down the hallway, my knife tight in my hand, my boots thudding against the snow covered tile. I snatched open the door of the first stairwell, and jumped from the top of the stairs, hitting the landing and bouncing off the far wall to jump again, landing with both feet on the bottom floor.

I yanked open the door to the orderly room, and my flashlight swung across the door on the far side, revealing it to be wide open.

With a D-ring attached to 550 cord on the handle.

I walked in, smiling wide enough I could feel my lips split.

The wind was pushing snow into the orderly room hallway, slicing across my cheeks and making my teeth throb painfully.

The 550 cord was shivering, pulling tightly.

I stepped up in front of the doorway, resting one hand on the chocked open door, the other holding tight to my Gerber. With the toe of my boot, I lifted up the chock, holding the door open.

He stepped out of the snow, lit by the flashlight, and his eyes opened wide at seeing me standing there. One eye was swollen shut, the other bloodshot, and I could see his teeth bared in a snarl. I made sure that he could see the knife in my hand, made sure he could see me bare my teeth in a smile.

"Miss me?" I asked.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 10

He inhaled deeply, I could tell by the way the parka lifted and the shoulders shifted. When he exhaled it was in a plume that the wind whipped away at the same time as it shredded by cheeks with the tiny ice crystals that would soon become snowflakes. His eye narrowed, and I could tell he was trying to make a decision.

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 him by 4 inches and 25 pounds, with less of an explosive temper, not as quick to start swinging a fist as him, and my rep was easier than his. I hadn't killed someone.

The asshole in front of me had.

Probably Bomber. Maybe Lewis. 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.

It was obvious that knew he had a problem, and while we kept saying I'd come out second best in the stairwell, I doubt 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 training pose.

I laughed, 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.

"Buh-bye." 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.

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 the mattered was what I knew was coming down the side of the building, blinding feeling his way through the wind driven snow, one hand on the side of the building.

Come on, bastard...

He took longer than I thought, but not as long as I figured he would.

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.

His body language told me that he hadn't been expecting to see me again.

"Hey, baby." I grinned.

And smashed him in the NVG's with the end 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.

Every instinct I possessed, that my father had put in me, that had hammered into me 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, 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.

A couple minutes was 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 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."

When he got picked up, he screamed thinly, faintly, and Nagle shushed him gently.

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. 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, 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. "Ant, 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.

"Hold him down." She ordered, and held at 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 chair 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 cloth strips." 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 auburn hair pulled back by a tie, hard looking hands covered in blood, with a voice that refused to be ignored, had replaced her.

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' bag 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, then said "Lift!" When the two other men lifted him, Nagle quickly looped the cloth underneath, then told them to set him down.

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 went 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.

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.

She finished wiping off her hands, then turned to me, put her arms around me, and began quietly crying. 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, the same with her earlobes. She was missing her eyelashes, and her face 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 a little girl's voice.

"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."

"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.

"Anyone else?" Carter asked.

"With Ant? Fuck that. So far every time someone goes out with Ant, they come back all fucked up." Daniels said. "I think I'll stay here."

"Coward." I spat.

"Fuck you, Ant." He answered.

"So, nobody?" Carter asked, "Figures."

"No, I'll go." Nagle said, starting to stand up. I put my hand on her shoulder and shoved her down.

"No you won't, you'll stay here and try to keep them alive." I told her. "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, Ant." Daniels said.

"Yeah, yeah." I sneered, touching the knife on my hip.

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." he 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 check 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 CQ Area, and when we shined the flashlight we could see that it had pushed in through the doors, shattering the glass panes on either side of the doors, destroying the doors.

"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?"

"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, ducking down and moving across the snow.

It was only about six inches of packed snow on the far side, and the snow had only spilled over the counter enough to cover the counter, 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 us, we might want to move somewhere else in case this part of the building collapses." Carter said, turning to speak to us.

I was behind Carter and Daniels, my flashlight and Carter's both shining on Daniels, who had paused just for a moment. Carter was facing Daniels and me, which meant that he saw what happened next perfectly.

A pair of white hands, with blackened flesh at the ends of the fingers, at the end of inhumanly long arms clad in ice crusted BDU's, shot out of the unisex bathroom doorway.

The hands grabbed Daniels by the shoulders, and before he could do much more than gape in surprise, the hands tightened with a loud crunch noise, I saw the talons that had replaced fingers sink into the flesh.

Before we could do anything, Daniels was snatched into the darkness by those pale claws, snatched so fast and with so much strength that his boots were left behind in the snow. Snatched so fast he didn't even have a chance to scream.

Snatched off his feet and into the bathroom by cold white hands that ended in blackened talons.

Carter and I both screamed like little girls.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 11

In the bathroom a scream sounded that suddenly ended in a bubbling and gargling scream and a lewd crunching sounds.

Daniels' boots sat in the snow in front of the unisex bathroom door, steam coming from the dampness left by Daniels' feet before he'd been yanked clear out of them and into the darkness of the bathroom.

The crunching went on as Carter and I screamed.

"RUN!" Carter yelled, his eyes bulging in the dim light from my flashlight.

I whirled around and ran for the stairs, slipping in the snow as I scrabbled for purchase on the snow covered tile floor. I ripped open the door, completely ignoring the wind that shrieked around me, and charged up the stairs. I could hear footsteps hammering after me and ran even faster, panic filling me.

Both of us were still screaming as we rounded the landing and ran for door that opened up into the hallway of the second floor. Ice shattered under my boots as I took the steps two at a time, running as fast as I could, and slammed into the bar that opened the door, crashing the door open to bounce off the far wall. I whipped out my hand, grabbing the doorjam, my momentum swinging me around, and I put a shoulder into the twin double doors, trying to turn so I could head into the First Platoon Area.

White hands with blackened talons...

"oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck..." Carter was yelling, a steady mantra.

We got the door and I stopped myself before I tried to just charge through the double doors that led into the platoon area, instead stopping and hammering on the door hard enough the shake them.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!" I screamed.

Carter smashed into the door with me, hammering on the door.

"OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN!" He shouted.

The locks clicked and we threw the door open, running to the far side and spinning around to stare at the door , which was open to the large room where people hung out, smoked cigarettes, and drank coffee while they waited for whatever job the NCO's decided to send everyone out on.

"For fuck's sake, close the goddamn door!" Carter yelled.

"What?" Nagle asked, shutting the doors and locking them.

"Where's Daniels?" Lewis asked from where he was sitting on the mattress.

"He's fucking gone!" I screamed, snatching up one of the fire axes.

"Tandy! Tandy got him!" Carter yelled, looking around for a second and grabbing up another axe.

"Bullshit, Tandy isn't fucking real." Lewis said scornfully.

"Tell him that!" Carter yelled.

"Daniels sure as fuck just found out he's real!" I yelled at him.

We told them what had happened, how we were only down there a few minutes before Tandy had drug Daniels into the bathroom.

"It's that other guy fucking with us, there's no way Tandy is out there." Lewis said.

"YOU DIDN'T SEE IT!" Carter screamed. "No way that was the psycho!"

"Calm down!" Nagle bellowed over us. "Are you sure Daniels is dead?"

"What do you think, Nancy?" I asked, "Tandy grabbed him!"

"We gotta check. We have to make sure." Nagle said, looking around. "We need to find out if he's dead."

"He's fucking gone." I spat. Carter nodded.

"We don't know that." Nagle said slowly, "We need to check and make sure."

"Then you're doing it by yourself." Carter snarled, "Tandy's out there, I'm staying right fucking here, and there's nothing you can say to make me go."

Nagle looked at me, her eyes pleading. "Ant..."

"I'll go." I said, then sighed, turning to Carter. "He's going to kill us all sooner or later, James, and even if he doesn't, we've got someone else to worry about."

"Don't care. I'm not going down there." Carter answered.

I nodded to him, understanding perfectly why he didn't want to go down there. Each winter a couple more of the First Twenty vanished. Each winter our unit suffered between twenty and forty "casualties" that were listed as "Death by Misadventure" or "Cold Weather Injury" or "Causes Unknown" officially.

Sometimes it seemed like nobody really cared what happened to us.

"Ant, I can't go down there alone." Nagle pleaded.

I sighed, setting down the axe. "I've got your back, babe."

Hernandez stared at us for a long moment, his sense of duty warring with his fear of what might be out there. He glanced at our wounded, looked at my face, then stared at the door for a long time, and I knew that he was thinking about was out there in the darkness, wind, snow, and cold. He'd heard the stories of Tandy, he'd been in the unit long enough to hear the stories.

"Fuck, I'm short too." He complained, "I'm a double digit midget."

"Stay here." Nagle said, shaking herself. "You and Carter need to guard the wounded in case the psycho tries to kill them." She pointed at the axe on the table. "If he breaks in, use those on him, don't stop until he's in at least four different pieces."

Hernandez and Carter nodded as I moved up to the doors. I waited for a few moments until Nagle moved up and put her hand on the handle to the door.

"Ready, Ant?" She asked, smiling a wan smile at me.

"Yeah." I told her, and she opened the doors. Outside the footprints we'd left were already gone, swept away by the snow and wind. The only light was from our flashlights, and the snow seemed to just absorb it, banishing what feeble light we had into darkness. Behind us the doors shut with a whisper and we heard the metallic click of the lock, and the scraping sound I knew was someone putting a chair on the handle to keep someone from opening it if they managed to unlock it.

"He's going to kill us, you know?" Nagle said, looking around and panning her flashlight around.

"I can take him unless he runs again." I said, "He got lucky in the stairwell."

We started slogging through the snow in the room, heading toward the stairwell door, and she smiled at me, looking sad.

"We let the snow in, we let winter in," She told me, pulling open the door. "When that happened, we let Tandy in." She finished as we moved into the stairwell. "He's going to kill all of us."

The stairs were empty, full of windblown snow, and I winced when I inhaled the cold air and my teeth erupted into pain. I squinted, trying to see the stairs through the snowflakes, but they stayed blurry.

"What's wrong, Ant?" Nagle asked, seeing me squint and cock my head.

"Nothing. Fucking snow makes it hard to see." I said, and she grabbed my arm, pulling me around to face her. She shined her light in my face.

"Your eyes are fine." She reassured me. "Come'on, maybe we can save Daniels."

I nodded, and we hurried down the steps, pushing open the door to the first floor hallway. She stopped when she saw how the snow had pushed its way into the building, shattering the glass panels on either side of the outside doors, ripping loose and mangling the two sets of doors that had acted as an airlock.

There was another rumble, and the building groaned again, shivering under my boots. The snowpack that had forced its way through the doors moving forward a couple of handspans deeper into the room. The NORAD clock fell off the wall behind the almost snow covered desk.

"Jesus." Nagled breathed, a plume of warm steam coming out of her mouth.

The only sound was the wind shrieking through the hallways and the crunching of the snow under our boots as we made our way toward the unisex bathroom door. Nagle led the way, shining her flashlight on the snow, and stopped in front of the door, waving me over.

Fear clenching my stomach I stopped next to her and looked into the bathroom.

No Tandy.

Nagle and I moved into the bathroom, looking around the corner where the sinks, mirrors, and toilet stalls were, Nagle's flashlight picking up the small window high in the far wall that was only six inches high and maybe a foot and a half wide. A light dusting of snow covered the tile, but the door was wedged open by the packed snow that had been forced into the CQ Area.

The bathroom was completely empty.

No tracks, no blood, no bodies.

Only Daniels' flashlight shining up at the ceiling.

"Fuck." Nagle breathed.

"Let's go." I said, turning around. We went back out into the CQ Area, and I checked behind the counter, coming up empty for the first aid kit. Nagle kept flashing her light around the room, often pausing on the open doors of the rec room, the dayroom, the two bathroom doors (male and female), and the open dark maw of the unisex bathroom.

I looked up, opening my mouth to tell her we were out of luck, that I couldn't find the first aid kit.

Behind Nagle a dark form stood, and when I passed the flashlight onto him, I could see his one good eye, bloodshot, staring at Nagle.

Nagle, who was right in front of him, maybe two feet away.

Behind him, footprints disappeared into the first floor hallway.

He brought the bayonet up as I started to move, yanking my knife free from my belt.

"Ant?" She asked asked I put one hand out to vault over the CQ counter.

The knife came down.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 12

In my mind, I had it all worked out. Vault over the CQ Counter, land on my feet, reach out with one hand and snatch Nagle forward, use the momentum generated by that to get in close, slam the knife into his belly and give it a quarter twist before dragging it out and doing it again. He'd cut me, probably good, but that was rule number one in a knife fight. You're gonna get cut. I knew it, he probably didn't.

My feet hit the snow on top of the floor, and went out from under me.

Fuuuuuuuuu...

My head bounced off the counter, and everything vanished in a white flash for a split second.

Nancy Nagle was turning, one arm coming up to protect herself, falling toward me. The knife was still coming down.

My head hit the snow covered floor and bounced. My whole body went tingly and everything went blurry. There was two Nagle's fighting with two killers. All four of them were fuzzy, out of focus, and my legs and arms twitched spasmodically as I tried to get my body to get up, get to my feet.

get up get up get up get up get up get up...

Nagle hit the floor and the figure put a boot into her stomach. She screamed, a choking, high sound of animal agony.

ON your FEET! my Father's voice rang in my head, impossibly to deny.

I was on my feet, one hand against the counter to keep myself balanced. The knife was in my hand, heavy, but familiar. I thrust myself away from the counter, toward him, the knife back and away from my body.

He was bending down to grab her.

The knife looped out, around his neck, and I grabbed the top of his parka, pulling his head backwards, and the Gerber, a birthday gift from my brother, sliced around the front of his neck, biting deep and catching on something for a moment.

An elbow caught me in the mouth as he suddenly straightened up, sending stars spangling across my vision, making me stumble back against the counter.

He turned and faced me, standing up straight and holding the bayonet in his fist, point down. Standard downward stabbing hold. I could see his bloodshot eye through the hole in the cold weather mask, his teeth, missing one of the front ones, bared through the little slit in the mask. The part that covers the mouth was hanging down, and I knew it was to let him breathe.

I was using the counter to hold myself up, everything blurry around me, my head ringing with pain. I needed to vomit, my stomach cramping, and nausea making my head swim.

There was a slash across the throat of his parka, stuffing puffed out of the slash, and the button at the middle of his throat had a bright mark where my blade had scored across it. I'd missed the kill, forgot to take into account the thick cold weather gear.

Nancy was crawling away, leaving a black trail in the snow, her flashlight and mine still illuminating the snow filled room around us. She wasn't whimpering, wasn't crying, just slowly crawling across the snow.

You killed Bomber....

It was tough standing up on my feet, since I couldn't feel my legs, but rage began to drive me. Fuck what I was taught, screw the whole "keep your cool" mantra.

You killed Nancy...

Overwhelming fury could do a lot.

I shook my head, reminding myself I'd taken harder hits at the Green Goose Club in Fulda, that this asshole didn't have anything on me. I was made of twisted steel and sex appeal. All the ladies love a killer.

He came at me, knife brought back over his head, trying to rush me against the counter and use his large size and bulk to pin me and then finish me off at his leisure with the bayonet...

Yeah...

I stepped into him, grabbing his upraised wrist, letting him grab man, and drove my forehead into his face. My vision went white, but something crunched. The hand on my wrist weakened and I pushed the blade forward, feeling resistance. I smashed my forehead forward again, feeling another crunch. The blade went in a little further and I twisted my wrist.

He screamed then, and I kneed him in the crotch, the blow losing most of its power from the cold weather gear protecting him.

Something landed on my shoulder, sparking bright pain that I quickly ignored.

And then that happened...

A hard yank pulled his hand away from mine, and I grabbed him around the waist like I loved him and was drawing him in for a kiss. He used an empty hand to drive a fist into my side, and our feet tangled up and we went down on the floor. Hard.

Another white flash, and someone was screaming, punching me in the face, each punch causing a white flash in the darkness.

I pulled back my arm, yanking it free of whatever was holding onto it.

And drove my fist, Gerber fighting knife leading the way, all the way to the hilt into something.

Another white flash, and I knew I was being pushed away, landing on my back in the snow, but the room had gone pitch black. I could hear a sobbing noise, and I grabbed out with my other hand, my fingers wrapping around a large boot. I grabbed it and pulled, and heard someone hit the ground with a scream.

I drove my knife into the leg just above my hand, twisting the blade around and dragging it off to the side.

Another scream.

The other boot came back and hit me in the face, invisible in the darkness.

Sobbing and moaning, something moved away from me in the darkness, but I couldn't remember why it was important. I managed to push myself onto my back, staring up into the pitch black darkness.

I laid there, in the darkness for a long moment, just staring into the blackness. I kept probing at my broken teeth, and the pain made sparks appear in my vision.

"Ant?" Nagle's voice.

"I'm here, Nancy."

"Ant, honey, I need your help." She said softly.

"Where's your flashlight? I'll help you." I told her, rolling onto my side and pushing myself half up.

"Ant, oh fuck, Ant." She said, and I heard movement in the snow. I whipped my knife around at it. "Dammit, Ant, stop it!" Nancy yelled, and I laid down on my side in the snow.

Another rumble, and I felt the snow push me a few inches in the darkness.

"Ant, I'm going to touch your face, OK?" Nagle said.

"OK." I said, laying there. I felt her gloved fingers glide over my face. I heard her flashlight click several times, but no light illuminated the room.

"Ant..." Her voice was full of pain and sorrow.

"Yeah?" I reached out to touch her face and felt her grab my wrist in the darkness and pull my hand over to her cold cheek.

"Baby, I'm sorry." She told me.

"I think you're blind..."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 13

Nagle grabbed my wrist and then pulled the knife from my fingers. I could feel warm drops hitting my face, and felt her cold gloved fingers on my face, touching my eyes, the warm throbbing agony of my nose, then across my lips, which felt overinflated and pulsed in time with my nose. Her hands left me, and I heard a rustling noise, a crunching in the snow, and then her hands were guiding me up to my feet. She threw my arm over her and gasped as I leaned against her. Something large and tubular was pressed into my hand, and my boots crunched in the snow as I tried to get my feet under me.

"Come on, baby." She muttered, pulling me forward into the darkness. We turned to my left, and I slammed face first into the doorjam, screaming, dropping whatever I was holding in my hand and grabbing my face as I went ass first into the cold snow. Sparks filled my vision, chasing one another in the darkness, and my teeth awoke with a roar of agony that made my head swim.

I fell over to the side and vomited again in the snow.

Her hands were touching me, rubbing my back, rubbing my high and tight.

I'd lost my hat.

"Come on, Ant." She muttered, pulling me to my feet when I was done retching into the snow. "I'm sorry, I so sorry." She mumbled, pulling me forward. We paused for a second, and she grabbed my wrist, putting my hand on the banister. "Come on, Ant, I need you." She said. She was breathing hard, and I felt her shiver under my arm.

I tripped and fell face first on the landing, barely getting my arm up in time, and I lay on the landing, my foot kicking as I tried to process the instructions to get up, while my lower body kept trying to walk up the stairs.

"I'm hurt bad, Nancy." I groaned, finally pushing myself up. I stayed on all fours, retching into the snow again, every heave filling my vision with bright white and causing a sharp pain in my head that made me want to do it again.

The snow covered ice chilled my knees through my pants, pain radiating from my kneecaps, and the wind whipping around me in the stairwell.

"I need you to get up, Ant, please, I need you." She begged, pulling on me.

It was pitch black in the stairwell, and I crawled around until my hands hit the stairs. I fumbled over till I grabbed the railing and used it to pull myself up.

Beneath us a door crashed open, and something screamed long and loud.

The stairwell vibrated as something began walking up the steps with slow, deliberate footfalls. Something that moved in the dark, the snow, and the wind.

One foot in front of the other, keep moving, it was all I could do in the darkness. Retch while you move, don't stop.

The footsteps were slow, deliberate, unhurried.

"Come on, Ant!" Nagle yelled, pulling on me. I stumbled against her and she drug me through the snow, one arm thrown across her shoulders. Into the wind, the snow biting my cheeks. My earlobes shrieked in pain as the wind changed directions. My feet were going in all kinds of different directions.

Behind me, in the darkness, I could hear the staircase thump with each step of whatever dark thing was rising out of the depths of the building. The building where the winter had been let in.

The building where not only a psycho was more than likely holed up, but a building where the cold, the ice, the winter had been allowed in. The building where something with long arms, clad in tattered and dirty BDU's, with white hands that had blackened flesh at the fingers and gleaming white bones for talons, hunted in the cold and dark.

Someone was whimpering in the darkness.

There was a banging, and I flinched back from the flashes of white light and the pain that each impact made, but someone, nancy, pulled me back, almost pulling me off my feet.

"Open the door, please, you have to hurry!" Nancy called out.

There was a scraping noise, and something pulled me forward, out of the wind and cold and into warmth. Not a warm room, but not the killing cold that was outside the room.

"Oh fuck, what happened to you two?" Carter asked, and I felt someone grab my arm. I pulled back, snarling, and swung at them.

fuck you and your cold weather mask...

"He can't see." Nancy half sobbed. "Ant, Ant, relax, it's Carter."

Someone grabbed my arm, and this time I let them drag it over their shoulders. I went limp, my legs drained of energy, my legs disconnected from the rest of me. My brain was telling them to walk, to carry me forward, but my legs were ignoring my brain and taking a break.

"Can you do anything?" Carter asked. I retched again, bringing up nothing but a few strings of saliva and bile, and agony across the front of my mouth.

"In a minute. Get me the first aid pack, Hernandez." She ordered, and I was being sat down in a chair. "Carter, get a cold towel and clean off his face and his head."

"What happened?" Lewis asked.

"Ant got his ass kicked by Santa, what does it fucking look like?" Nagle snarled.

"Fuck, he's bleeding everywhere." Carter answered, and I felt them move away.

There was rustling noise around me, and I resisted the urge to curl up in a ball and cover the back of my head with my hands.

"Did you find Daniels?" Lewis asked.

"He's fucking gone." Carter and Nagle said at the same time.

"Nagle, you're bleeding!" Hernandez said.

I felt a hand fumble at my shoulder and I half turned, slapping it away, trying to move away from it.

"Easy, Ant."

Bomber.

"Hey, John." I said, grabbing his hand with both of mine. I sobbed for a second, holding onto my best friend's hand. "I can't see, man. Tandy's out there, and I can't see. My careers over, they're going to throw me out." I began crying, lost and afraid in the darkness that no flashlight would chase away.

"It'll be all right, Ant, you'll see. Nancy's got us, I'm right here, and you won't let anything happen to either of us." He told me, squeezing my hands. He coughed and then groaned. "We've never let each other down yet."

"Oh God, this hurts." I heard Nancy moan, and I turned to look at her. "Carter, I need your help."

And saw only darkness shot through with bright sparks.

"She's OK, buddy." Bomber told me, squeezing my hand.

"You're bleeding pretty bad." Hernandez said.

"I fucked up, man." I told him. He shushed me and squeezed my hand again.

"Next year, we got my parents ranch, and you can just fuck my sister." He told me, and we both laughed, his laugh broken up by a cough and a deep groan. "Or we'll stay in Fulda and drink till we're bulletproof."

"That'll have to work." I heard Nancy say.

My vision swam, and I leaned forward in the chair and began dry heaving, my head threatening to burst each time I tried to bring something up and failed. White flashes and bright sparks kept filling my vision. There was a roaring noise in my ears, which just made things worse. When things swam back into normalcy, as normal as sitting in a chair surrounded by blackness could be, I heard Nagle say "I'm going..." There were footsteps, and Bomber squeezed my hand. I could hear the door open, and then shut and lock.

"Who left?" I asked, holding tight to Bomber's hand and looking around.

"Nancy. She'll be right back." Bomber told me.

"She's going to try to get into the other offices." Lewis sneered. "Stupid bitch is going to get killed."

I tried to stand up, and fell back into the chair when Bomber tugged on my hand. Lewis laughed at me and I felt myself turning red. The anger made my head pound and I was sick again. I could vaguely hear a crashing noise, and the rhythmic slamming just made my head pound harder.

"You couldn't find Daniels?" Lewis asked after a few minutes.

"No, the bathroom was empty." I told him.

"Bullshit, he couldn't have disappeared." He scoffed.

"He didn't 'disappear', you fucking moron, he was taken." Carter answered for me. "Tandy fucking grabbed him right out of his goddamn boots."

I nodded and groan as the motion made my head pound again. I was awash in a sea of agony. Cast adrift, the currents of suffering carrying me from jagged crest of pain to deep trough of agony. My mouth throbbed, my nose felt like it had been snapped off, I felt like I was breathing through ground glass, and my shoulder hurt like a bastard.

The sound of the door shutting and locking pulled me out of my haze of pain.

"Did you get anything?" Carter asked.

"Yeah, no thanks to you two." She snarled. "I got the first aid kits out of platoon offices." There was a short pause. "We got lucky, SFC Andrews had the platoon combat lifesaver bags in the locker."

"Thank God." I heard Hernandez breathe.

"I'll check Ant first, then take care of the rest of you." Nagle promised.

"Hey, don't you have any painkillers in those bags?" Lewis asked, "My legs are fucking killing me."

"No, they aren't." Nagle snarled, "Bomber's appendix is killing him. Ant's head might be killing him. Your legs are just fucking broken, now shut the fuck up."

"Bitch." Lewis muttered.

"Call her a bitch again, and I'll stomp your broken legs, you ungrateful cock." Bomber said, his voice low and ugly.

Footsteps moved over in front of me, and Bomber squeezed my hand.

"Ant, can you see this?" Nagle asked me.

"No." I admitted.

"Lean forward." She told me, then cursed. I felt cold fingers touch the back of my scalp and flinched. "Hold still, dammit." She poked at the back of my head some more, and I dry heaved for a few moment when she pressed on my skull. My vision went white and a rushing noise filled my ears.

"Fuck." She said. "All right, give me the suture kit."

"Where did you learn all this?" Lewis asked. I went to turn my head but strong hands grabbed either side of my head and held my head still.

"Correspondence courses." She admitted. "Dammit, I'd give my clit for a real aid kit. Like one of the SF bags."

She pulled at my lower lips, and lifted my upper lip with her fingers, then touched my nose. I didn't make much noise, but lets be honest, it hurt like a motherfucker.

"Ant, put your hands behind your back." She told me. I let go of Bomber's hand and put my hands behind me in the chair. A noose went over my wrists and pulled snug, and I tried to pull forward, but a hand and Nagle's voice stopped me. I sat there while my hands were tied behind the chair.

"Hold his head." She ordered, and I felt strong hands grab under my chin and the top of my head and arms wrapped around my skull in a modified sleeper. "He might pass out, but he's going to try to fight us."

Nagle stitched up my lips, the left corner of my upper lip, and four splits in my lower lip. She then put her fingers on either side of my nose and wrenched it into place. Sharp pains ticked up the back of my skull, and the tugging feeling meant someone was prodding at my brain.

I was being tortured. For the site codes.

"I'm not telling you shit." I grumbled, and spit blood out.

More pain, and I tried to pull my head free, but whoever was tuning me up had me held too tight. Pain in my shoulder, that made me yell, and I slumped forward when it was done.

"Fuck you." I spit.

They started on my face again.

Finally it was over, and I sagged forward. I sat in the darkness for a long time, the pain finally ebbing, and I remembered where I was and lifted my face.

"Ant, do you know who I am?" A woman's voice asked.

"Nancy." I breathed, and leaned forward, trying to find her. My cheek hit her stomach, warm and covered by a T-shirt. Her arms went around me gently.

"Untie his wrists." She said, and the cords were unwrapped from my wrists. I threw my arms around her and held tight.

"So what's the bright plan now?" Lewis bitched from where he was at.

"Ant might have killed him." Nancy said, gently rubbing my back. "So now we try to wait out the storm.

"Someone needs to go for help." Lewis said, like none of us had thought of that before.

"I might as well cut their throat myself." Nancy retorted. "Anyone who goes out there is a fucking dead man. The wind is up, the temperature is dropping, and daylight is coming."

"So fucking what? At least in the daylight they might make it." Lewis sneered.

"Anyone out there in the daylight is going to get blinded, confused, and lost." Carter added.

"Then someone needs to..." Lewis voice suddenly broke off and there was a sigh.

"Lewis?" Hernandez asked.

"Move!" Nancy yelled, pushing my arms away and leaving my touch. I groped around blindly and found another hand to hold.

"What's wrong with him?" Carter asked. "He was fine a second ago!"

There was silence for a long time.

"I don't know. He's dead." Nancy said softly. "I don't know why, but he's dead." She sobbed for a moment. "God dammit, there's nothing that wrong with him! Just broken legs."

"Come away, Nagle, there's nothing you can do." Hernandez said softly. I could hear Nancy weeping quietly, and after a few moments someone took my free hand.

"Come on, Ant." Hernandez said, pulling me to my feet. Whoever was holding my hand let go, and Hernandez led me through the darkness, until my feet bumped a mattress.

"Lay down, keep her calm." Hernandez said, pulling my hand over till I felt Nagle's hair.

I pulled her down on the mattress and wrapped my arms around her. She was shaking from her tears, and I nuzzled the back of her head, making noises that really didn't mean anything, but meant everything to two of us.

We stayed that way for a long time, until she rolled over in my arms and kissed my bottom lip.

"Can you see me?" She asked.

"Nope." I admitted.

She nestled against me for a long moment, then raised her head and kissed the side of my neck.

"I..." She began.

There was a hammering on the door.

"Guys, let me in." Daniels voice carried through the wood. "It's cold out here."

Don't...

Another three hard blows on the door.

Open...

"Guys, come on, this isn't funny, I'm cold." Daniels voice was infectionless, drained of everything that made his voice his. Even his Brooklyn accent was gone.

the door...

"Come on, guys, I'm cold."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 14

"Ignore it." Carter said, his voice low. "He'll go away."

"It's cold out here, guys. And I think that someone's after me." Daniels voice said, and this time I could hear a faint bubbling sound.

from where Tandy bit out his throat...

"Just ignore it." Carter repeated.

Daniels hammered on the door again.

In my arms, Nagle whimpered, pushed past her limit. She's been with us almost every time, had kept her cool, but it was finally all catching up with here. The fact we were being stalked through a barracks that was more a ruin than a home, chased by someone living who got off on us suffering.

"Let me in." Daniels whispered, his voice clear as a bell over the howl of the wind and the snowflakes whispering against the blanket covered glass.

The winter had been let in, and with it...

"Fuck off!" Bomber yelled from where he was laying on a mattress. "We know who it is!"

There was a sudden pounding on the door, loud enough that it made my vision flash again. I could hear the door creak and groan with the force of the blows, and knew it was bowing inward.

"LET ME IN!" The voice howled.

Above us, a voice shouted and boots crashed against the floor.

Nagle whimpered again and burrowed against me, shivering against the blanket I hadn't been aware we were under until the wool grazed my painfully swollen cheek.

"OPEN THE DOOR!" The voice roared, and I heard the shattering of glass.

The wind picked up, howling around us, and the blanket was almost torn off of us. Snow cascaded across us, and I could hear the blankets snapping against the walls as the wind drove into the room.

Carter and Hernandez began swearing.

"The windows!" Hernandez yelled, somewhat unnecessarily in my opinion.

I went to get up, but Nancy's arms tightened around me, holding me tightly. Her hand moved up and wrapped around the back of my neck, drawing my face down till she could kiss my swollen lip.

"Stay with me, Ant, please." She whispered into my mouth.

There was a banging on the door again, but not nearly the thunderous impacts that had shaken the air of the room. I could hear Hernandez and Carter swearing, hear things moving around. Nancy was kissing me again, running her tongue over my lip and causing sparks of pain.

"Tell me I'm still beautiful." She whispered. She was shivering, but her skin felt warm under my hands, it felt warm where I'd put my hands under her shirt to press my hands against her thick lower back.

I mumbled to her that she was still beautiful.

"Tell me you love me." She said, kissing my lips softly.

The wind was cutting down, and I could hear things being moved around.

"I love you." I whispered to her.

She was still shivering.

"He stabbed me, Ant, I think I'm going into shock." She said, hugging me tight.

I squeezed her tight with my arms, squeezing with my hands at her lower back.

"We're going to die, aren't we?" She whispered in my ear.

"I hope not." I answered honestly.

"Do you think Tandy is going to get us?" She asked, still shivering.

"Me, probably, same as Carter. The rest of you? Who knows." I wrapped my legs in hers, rubbing her back. Her skin was getting cold. I pulled up her shirt and then mine then pressed my skin against hers.

Her breasts were cold and her nipples felt like ice chips pressed against my skin.

"I'm cold, Ant." She told me, her teeth chattering.

"Please don't die." I knew I was crying again. Lost in the dark and one of the few bright points in my life was dimming in my arms. I held her tightly, kissing her face in the darkness, rubbing her skin, trying to keep her warm, trying to keep her alive against me.

I kissed the side of her face, and my lips found an upraised tear in her face with rough thread crisscrossing it. I kissed up the line, then across her forehead, ignoring the sound of the wind, pulling one hand back to shove down her pants in the front and the other one down the back of her pants.

My fingers were clumsy, but I squeezed and tickled, kissing the front of her face, ignoring the way it made my mouth throb. She shivered again, and pulled tighter against me as the banging picked up. I could hear Hernandez and Carter talking, but it was distant, far away, all that mattered was Nagle.

My Nancy...

Her skin was cold, even where she would be warm, and she was shivering in my arms but mostly limp, barely responding to my movements. Her breathing was ragged and shallow, and she didn't even react when I bit her earlobe hard.

The last time I bit her ear, she'd been in a drunken stupor and I'd used the pain to wake her up enough to get her off the floor of my room, out of the puddle of drunken vomit, and into the bed. The time before that I'd used biting her ear to wake her up enough to get her out of the shower and into my bed.

Now she didn't even twitch, just shivered, her skin getting colder as the wind from the broken windows twitched under the blanket. I squeezed and pinched, trying to get her to move, to do something, anything.

...please don't die.

Heat blossomed in her skin, under my hands, and her shivering stopped. I was consumed with the feel of her skin under my fingertips, paying attention only to her.

She pushed me away suddenly, reaching down and pulling my hands out of her pants. Her arms wrapped around me suddenly and pulled me tight, holding onto me. Her skin was warm again, hot against mine, and she pecked a kiss at my face.

"Go to sleep, Ant." She teased, holding onto me. "Hold me tight and go to sleep."

I let her hold me, and let the darkness, warm and sparked with dancing white sparks, pull me in. I didn't care about the wind howling, or the flapping of fabric whipping by the wind, or even the other voices.

I had Nancy, that's all that mattered.

please don't die...

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 15

"Wake up, Ant." Nancy's voice pulled me from a dream of sitting in my brother's room, holding still while his girlfriend mopped the blood off my face and he told me that I needed to stop getting my ass kicked so often.

I opened my eyes, and could see her above me.

She was smiling, and I could see her eyes, her hair, and her skin. Past her I could see the white of the ceiling.

I couldn't make out any features, I couldn't tell her expression beyond her teeth from smiling. I looked around, and I could see fuzzy blobs scattered around, but at least I could see something instead of darkness everywhere.

"I can see you." I told her, wincing as speaking pulled at the stitches in my lips.

"You can?" She sounded happy, and a hand popped up, holding up three fingers. "How many..."

"Three. No pinky." I said, and she leaned down and hugged me.

She lit a cigarette, and held it out to me. I was proud of myself for being able to grab the tiny white blur without burning myself. I knew it was a test, she was seeing if I was lying to her.

The nicotine felt good, easing the pain.

I noticed it was really warm in the room, and light was coming from the window. I looked over, but all I could see was brown with white edges.

"How do you feel?" She asked, leaning in close. She suddenly came into focus, and I could see she had a stitched up line from her eye to the bottom of her jaw, roughly stitched up.

"My head hurts." I told her, pushing myself into a sitting condition. "How's Bomber?"

"Unconscious, but breathing strong." She told me, bending down and covering one eye. She flashed the flashlight in my eye, uncovered it, then repeated it.

"Still concussed." She said, then made a face. "I think you might have a skull fracture." She sighed and rubbed the side of her face. "We're all beat up."

I looked around, unable to identify the man shaped blobs standing up.

"How's Lewis?" I asked.

"Dead." She admitted. "Can you get up?"

"Yeah." I began fighting to get up. "What happened?"

"I don't know. One minute he was speaking, the next minute he was dead. No wounds, no nothing." She admitted, stepping back and turning into a blurry blob as I got to my feet. She took the cigarette away from me and didn't give it back.

"Why's it so warm in here?" I asked, finding a chair shaped blur and sitting down. I should tell her that I still can't see worth a shit, but right now, they needed me. They'd been there for me, I needed to be there for them.

"Hernandez and Carter figured it out, and we made it while you were asleep." She sat on my lap and kissed my forehead. "We drug up a pair of GP Mediums, put one over the door, put one over the window and used tables and poles to hold it there.

"We put up the tent liners on the walls, and on the floor. Then we set up a stove, ran the stovepipe through the hole in the tent, and fired it up." She told me. "Hernandez might have saved all of us."

I nodded, and moved over to the blurry tables, finding a box quickly. I lifted up the brown bag, having to bring it almost to my nose to read the label. 'Chicken ala King' Great, well, with my teeth, it beat catshit and rice.

"Ant..." Nagle was next to me. I turned and looked at her, squinting.

"What?" I smiled.

"Give me the MRE." She said, and I handed it over. She moved, I couldn't tell what she doing very well, and she held up the package. "What does this say?"

I squinted again, tilting my head to try to read it.

I couldn't even make out the black printing.

"Chicken and Rice." I guessed.

She held it closer and closer, until I could see the blurry black lines and then it swam into focus.

Pork Patty with Beans.

"You can't see, can you?" She asked. Someone else was coming up behind her.

"I can see." I protested, fumbling in the box and pulling out another one. I held it up to my nose. 'Chicken ala King' I tore it open and turned around to see another blur standing there. Since it was skinned, I figured out who it was.

"Carter." I nodded, moving over to the chair and pulling open the bag.

"Nagle says you can't see." He told me.

"I can see just fine." I lied, squinting at my food.

"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.

"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 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." She chuckled. "You had the bayonet stuck in the muscles at the top of your shoulder." 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."

"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, 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, figuring out as long as I moved slow, my vision didn't cut out.

"When Hernandez 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 Ant stay here?" He asked.

"My fucking plan." I growled.

"Can you even fucking see?" Carter asked.

"Good enough." I told him.

"He's Ant, he's good." Nagle told him, 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 spend 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.

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, 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. All of us chuckled. "Lock the door behind us." She finished.

We moved out into the snow, and the sound of our boots in the snow seemed 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 the hallway, 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 the door.

"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 win 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. "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 boy, boys didn't matter. Boys went to war. Boys worked to provide for the family. 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.

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

Pain is natures way of telling you that you're alive, boy...

I was really alive.

"Plan B, baby." I said, 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 on the air.

"Let's break shit up." I said, then stepped forward and shattered the window 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 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 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, fuzzy and unable to be pinned down for what it was.

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

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

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 16

I stepped forward, holding tight to the axe, grinning at the man at the end of the hallway.

Behind me, Hernandez and Nagle began working on the next set of door 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 well, but I wasn't going to need to for what I was going to.

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

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 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 in how bad of shape I was. 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 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 my head 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.

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 football field away. Behind me there was more crashing, and I saw the shape shift.

"Come on, 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."

I was running on empty.

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.

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 moment 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 Sergeant Jakes." 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 spit, then reached out and put one hand on the doors.

The 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, 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 lair here.

"Everyone take a door." I walked over to the first door, kicking it open, then chopping 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.

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. 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.

When I was done, I grabbed the NVG's, looping them around my belts 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.

Nagle let the NVG's hang from her neck and tucked the bayonets in her jacket pockets. She smiled at me, and I smiled back.

"Having fun?" She asked, letting the axe swing from one hand and kissing my lower lip.

"Oh yeah." I answered.

"Mean ol' boy." She laughed, then kissed my lower lip for a second before biting hard. Her hand snaked around behind my neck and she pulled me closer as her lips bit deep into my lip. Her eyes were wide open and looking into mine. "Vicious boy." She teased when she let go.

"Let's find him and kill him." I growled, turning away from Nagle, when what I wanted to do was drag her down on the floor, tear off her clothes, and take her right there on the tile.

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

"Motor pool." Nagle and I answered at the same time.

The building shuddered again as more snow slammed into it.

"You can't go out there in that." Hernandez said, waving a hand at the snow blowing in the windows. "You'll be dead before you get 50 feet."

I turned away from the dark room, walking toward the stairwell access. "We did it before, we can do it again, and this time..." I looked at Nancy and grinned.

"We're after him. No problem." Nagle finished as I opened the stairwell door.

Yeah...

Nagle let out a scream. I whipped my head around and my vision went black for a second.

It came back with a snap, and in front of me stood a dark figure, dressed in a parka, with an extreme cold weather face mask across his face. His hands were hidden by trigger mittens, but the left one still held the bayonet tightly up next to his head. He was close enough that I could see every detail about him.

His one good eye glared bloodshot rage at me as the knife came down.

And then that happened...

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 17

First rule, son, is you're going to get cut...

I lunged forward as the bayonet came down, adrenaline spiking through me. My right hand caught the wrist of the hand the bayonet was in. I moved into him, my left hand slamming shot after shot into his side as we staggered to the side. I felt something give under the parka as we reached the edge of the steps.

Nancy was still screaming my name as I slung him down the steps.

I raced down the steps as he scrambled to his feet, crashing into the wall when he scrabbled down the next flight of steps. My vision vanished, but I didn't care, turning around and hurtling myself down the steps as my vision returned. My palms slapped the wall and I thrust myself down and away, chasing him.

I saw him ahead of me, and drove a fist into his kidney as I slammed him into the wall. An elbow hit me in the face, and I staggered back, my eyesight vanishing, but I kept my hands up just in case.

He snapped back into focus just as the knife was coming down, and I slapped the knife away, throwing two right hands into his face before he could get the knife back around, bouncing his head off the wall. He screamed in pain and shoved me back, and I tripped over the step and landed on my ass, my vision crackling and going gray.

Instead of following up, he ran down the steps, and I reached between the bars of the banister and grabbed his ankle as he went by, ignoring the flare of pain and crunch in my elbow.

He screamed again as he went down face first. I got up and chased him, jumping from the top step, aiming my boots at him.

I landed in the middle of his back, and he shrieked as something crackled under my boots.

Right before my feet went out from under me and I went backwards down the flight of stairs, my head bouncing off the stair and a burning pain erupting in my neck.

"I'll kill you!" He yelled, and I heard him coming down the stairs, my vision blurring and struggling to come into focus. I guessed, and lashed out with my boots, and felt a jarring impact as my boots slammed into him. He let out a high wheeze of agony, and fell on top of me.

We rolled to the side, and I kneed him off just as my vision came back.

Grinning, I got to one knee, my hand at my belt, looking up at him as he stood up to his full height, the bayonet in his fist. The flashlights from above cast crazy shadows on the walls, and for a split second I could see his bloodshot eye plainly.

The knife hit me in the shoulder, driving deep, through my jacket and shirt, the hilt slamming into my skin. He was staring down at me, his eye wide, his teeth bloody.

I twisted my knife, and he spit blood into my face.

He went forward, against me, and we went down the stairs. I lost him, tumbling, and I realized I was blind again when I came to a stop.

I was laying in something soft, and I could feel cold seeping in through my jacket, my pants, and my shoulder faded to a dull throb.

Nagle and Hernandez were coming down the stairs.

I felt something tug on something inside of my shoulder, rocking me in place, but all I could see was darkness, and I lacked the strength to even scream.

I'm out of gas...

My vision came back, tunnel vision, the middle strangely magnified, the edges blurry, but the center of my vision sharp and clear.

He was bent over me, one arm around his waist, his left hand reaching down toward me and vanishing from my vision. He rocked back, and I felt another pull of agony from my shoulder.

I couldn't even groan.

"Goddamn asshole enlisted puke." he snarled, letting go and standing up.

He brought back his boot and kicked me in the face, my vision vanishing in a white flash.

"ANT! ANT!" Nagle was coming down the steps.

He laughed, rich, deep, evil laughter.

Snow crunched next to my ear, and my body ignored my command to lash out and grab him as he went by.

I heard Nagle and Hernandez's footsteps stop on the stairs as his footsteps rang on the steps, his rich dark laughter filling the stairwell.

"Run!" Hernandez shouted.

"Ant!" Nagle yelled.

My Nancy...

"He's gone!" Hernandez yelled back, "Run!"

I could hear him going up the stairs, his footsteps thudding in the darkness, his laughter leading the way.

"Ant! I love you!" She yelled down the stairwell.

I heard their boots pound back up the stairs.

I love you...

I lay there in the darkness, in the snow. I could feel the wind blowing in, and knew he must have gotten the door open. My eyes were open, but I couldn't see, even though I blinked when cold snowflakes hit my unseeing eyes.

Footsteps came back down the steps, and paused near me.

"Stay down." The voice was full of hatred, repeating the words I'd heard so often.

The footsteps crunched through the snow and disappeared, leaving me alone in the cold, and the snow.

Time ticked by, my shoulder growing cold, and it felt like all my warmth was pulling out of my shoulder. I could feel the freezing blade stuck through me, pinning me to the ground, pinning me to the ice and snow.

Sharp, cold icicles touched my face, slowly tracing over my face, pausing on my lips to tug them open.

There was a low, bubbling chuckle as the sharp icicle ran down my cheek.

I could hear footsteps pounding down the stairs.

"Ant, we're coming for you!" Someone yelled.

Carter.

No...

The talon dug into my shoulder, pushing next to the blade, and then withdrew as soon as it dug into my flesh. There was sucking sound, then another low chuckle. It was wet, and cold, and without any humanity.

"He's dead." Nagle, sobbing.

"No way, he's alive." Carter.

I heard a low, bubbling hiss.

run...

The darkness flashed, and I could see the darkness, but it was less absolute than it had been before.

A flashlight beam illuminated the dark form above me.

Deep, sunken eyes, nothing but black pits full of hatred and dark mirth. Gaping open jaws, full of broken and jagged teeth that were too long for the mouth. White skin, with the edges of the mouth pulled up in a horrific grin.

Grimy, dirty, tattered BDU's, covered with frozen mud and a rind of frost.

A hand held in front of my face, at the end of a too long arm, the wrist and forearm protruding from a ragged torn BDU sleeve. The fingers were blackened, long, and twisted, with the fingerbones thrust through the blackened flesh.

My eyes flicked down, automatically, out of habit, and spotted the nametage as Carter, Nancy, and Hernandez all screamed at once.

TANDY

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 18

The light hit the thing on top of me square, and it looked up into the lights, dark black circles around those even darker pits that were supposed to pass for eyes. The jaws gaped open and hissed, spittle flying out from between the jagged black teeth and spattering my face, the drops freezing my skin even deeper than the snow that had blown in and begun to cover me.

In a white blur he was gone, nothing more than a malevolent shadow that dissolved as soon as the light touched it, but my face still burned where those cold talons had traced over it.

I was aware I was crying silent tears, laying in the snow at the bottom of the stairwell, with an icicle jammed through my shoulder, spreading cold through my whole body.

Boots landed next to my face, and I braced myself for another kick to the face, more punishment.

nasty little boys need punished...

"Shit, I think he's dead." Carter said, leaning down and looking in my eyes. He was pale, and glanced up down my body.

I knew he was looking out the door for Tandy.

I exhaled slowly, struggling to inhale. I was tired, so tired, and it was a monumental effort to drag air into my frozen lungs. I was so tired that the cold air being pulled past my teeth didn't even hurt, didn't spark the slightest pain.

"He's alive, he just breathed." Hernandez said. "Grab him, we gotta get him upstairs."

Hands grabbed me, but all I could do was stare at the ceiling.

"Shit, he's heavy." Carter griped.

"Try having him on top of you." Nagle popped back, and the other two chuckled.

My Nancy...

My view tilted, and it got dark again, but without the white sparks that meant I was blind again. I could see the backspill of reflected light from the flashlights as they carried me up the flights of stairs.

"You two got him?" Nagle asked, and I heard them both grunt. There was a scream of frozen metal opening, and we moved through the windy room. There was a hammering on the door.

"John, open the door!" Nagle pleaded. "John, please."

The door locks clicked, and I was enveloped by a warm cushioning warmth that surrounded me and lifted me up.

"Is that a fucking bayonet?" John asked, breathing hard.

"Yes." Nagle snapped. "Set him on the table. Get his knife out of his hand."

I felt fingers prying open mine, but I was unable to help. All I could do was stare up at the ceiling.

"Prop his feet up. Hernandez, you hold his legs." Nagle ordered, moving around to my left side. My knife was pulled from my hand.

"Got it." Carter said.

"Give it to me." Nagle said.

I love you...

"Bomber, get the medical kit, Carter, hold his left arm. I'm going to need you to kind of hold his arm and lay on his chest at the same time when I tell you." Nagle ordered. I felt tugging on my jacket, and then heavy denim ripping.

"Jesus, it went all the through." Bomber said. His face appeared, and he grinning at me. I blinked, and he put his hand on my head. "This is gonna hurt a lot, Ant." He told me.

The icicle in my shoulder wiggled. I blinked again, my vision darkening in whorls of black and white static.

I felt my jacket open and my shirt pull open.

"Thank God." Nagle whispered.

"What?" Carter asked.

"That's not his blood." She said, pulling my shirt back down. More denim ripping, then I felt my sleeve pull off slowly, exposing my arm. "John, hold his arm right at the biceps, and put your other hand on his chest. Watch his head, I don't think he can take much more damage there."

"He can take it." John grunted, staring down at me. "My friends aren't pussies." The absolute sincerity and confidence only a Texan can have.

"Hold him." Nagle said, and the icicle started to slide out of my shoulder.

I just laid there, staring at the ceiling, as the icicle slowly drew out of my flesh, leaving behind a cold feeling that I knew was a layer of frost inside the wound.

I love you... Nagle's voice down the stairwell.

"What the fuck?" John blurted.

"Frostbite. He's got frostbite in the wound. Dammit." Nagle bitched. "He was down there too long."

The icicle sliding into the wound, freezing my flesh, and then pulling free, followed by an obscene sucking sound.

"I think it missed the artery. Goddamn, he's a lucky one." Nagle said. I felt something poke into my skin, the skin stretch, and then something thin and cold lance through the skin. "This is the best I can do. We'll just have to hope he doesn't bleed out."

Scalding hot droplets of water were hitting my chest, sliding down my pectoral, into my armpit, and burning my skin along the way.

"Roll him over." Nagle said. "Watch his head."

I was limp as the hands moved me, and once again the thin sliver of ice moved through my skin, dragging a red hot wire behind it.

"Why isn't he moving?" Hernandez asked.

"He's in shock, and if he doesn't have hypothermia, he's goddamn close." Nagle answered. "All right, roll him over and strip him naked. Use the knife to cut his jacket and shirt off."

I could feel my boots being unlaced and pulled off, then my socks. My pants were pulled down, boxers and all. I could feel my jacket, the jacket Nancy bought me in Frankfurt when we went to Oktoberfest, and my Iron Maiden shirt I'd gotten at Monsters of Rock 88, the day before the Ramstien Air Show. Nancy had gotten my the Monsters of Rock tickets, John had gotten me the Air Show tickets, being cut away.

Goddamn you, John Bomber, you're going to be the death of me...

I was being picked up, cradled by strong hands, and I was staring at the ceiling again.

"John, strip." Nancy ordered.

"What? Why?" Bomber asked.

"You're running a fever, I need you to help me warm him up." Nancy said, her voice brooking no argument. "Be some goddamn use, you inbred hick."

"Hey..." John's voice sounded wounded as I was set down on something soft and warm.

"Why isn't he blinking?" Carter asked. "It's really creepy."

Nagle sighed, and I could hear her coming closer. Feel her coming closer.

My Nancy...

"Brain damage. I think." She paused, and her warm hand touched my face, closing my eyes. As soon as she let go, my eyes opened, and I was looking into her face, framed by her auburn hair. "Get the medical tape, we need to tape his eyes shut."

No...

I felt burning hot legs next to mine, then someone radiating heat like a furnace lay down next to me, hair rubbing against my arm as a thick arm threw itself over my chest.

you better be wearing boxers, fucker...

Another body slid in next to, and I felt it shiver. "Brrr, he's fucking freezing." A hand passed a roll of tape to a petite hand with blackened fingernails. The tape vanished, and I heard a tearing noise.

Nancy's fingers brushed my eyes closed, then medical tape covered them.

"Is he going to be OK?" Hernandez asked.

"He's Ant, of course he will be." Bomber joked.

"Bomber?" Nagle said, her warm breath tickling my cheek.

"Yeah, Nagle?" I felt John shift.

"Get your goddamn hand off my tit."

John's laughter echoed in my head as I lay in the darkness.

"I'll take first watch, you guys get some sleep." Hernandez said.

"You get all the fun." Nancy breathed in my ear, "I'm the one who wants to be sandwiched."

Her words chased me down into darkness.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Chapter 19

Pain. Pain woke me up.

My mouth throbbed, my head was a storm of agony, my shoulder was on fire, my ribs felt like they'd been caved in, and someone was moving my left arm, making my elbow grind and scream in pain. I was blind again, my eyes refusing to open.

I tore my right arm out of the grip and swung it, hitting something soft but firm. A hand grabbed my wrist and pulled my arm back down.

"Goddamn it, you pussies, hold him." A woman's voice snapped out. "Goddamn it, I wish I'd known it was dislocated."

"Stay down, dammit, Ant." A man growled, and I bellowed as I snatched my arm out of the grip and swung again, hitting something solid. Someone cursed, and I dropped my arm down to my waist, fumbling for my knife. The hands grabbed my forearm, yanking my hand away, and pinning it to the floor.

"Get the fuck off of me!" I roared, bucking, trying to get them off of me.

trying to get Tandy off of me...

"Hold still, Ant, I've got to set your elbow." Nancy said, and I felt a bare foot slide into my armpit. Two small hands had a hold on my wrist. "For fuck's sake, hold on to him, he's going to go berserk."

There was a sudden yank, and my elbow flared. I screamed, kicking , fighting to get loose, trying to get loose. I felt someone throw themselves across me, firm breasts pressing against my chest, and lips mash against mine.

My Nancy...

It hurt, fiery agony, but I wrapped my arms around her warm body and did my best to hug her, to hold her tight to me.

"I love you." I managed to say, talking against her lips.

"You gonna live, brother?" Bomber asked me. The hands let go of my legs.

"I think I'm blind." I said. Nancy giggled against me, then I felt her hands on my face, pulling something away that burned.

Light burned into my eyes, and I winced, blinking at it.

"Bright." I said stupidly.

Nagle shaded my eyes, and her face slowly came into focus.

"Blink for me." She said. I did, looking at her oddly. "Hey, don't laugh, we had to tape your eyes shut."

"Get me up." I said, trying to push her off of me. "Get me on my feet."

"Ant, no. You need to lay down." She held my face gently in her hands. "You have a soft spot on the back of your head."

"Dude, you shouldn't even be alive." Carter said from beyond my sight. "We thought you were dead when we found you. He fucked you up good."

I remembered the feeling of my Gerber sinking into his stomach, the way I twisted it, and the way he spit blood into my face, and I grinned.

"What's so funny." Nagle asked.

"He's fucked." I answered. "I got him. Stabbed him low in the gut." I stared into her brown eyes.

"Get me up." I told her. She bit her lip, then shook her head.

"Fine, but if you so much as wobble, you lay back down." She said, helping me sit up. I managed to not throw up or pass out, but my vision blacked out for a moment.

Bomber was sitting next to me, his face covered in sweat, wearing a pair of BDU pants and a brown shirt. He had his arms crossed over his stomach and was rocking faintly back and forth. I could hear Carter was digging through the MRE's, bitching about the ones that were left. Hernandez was over changing the gas can on the stove, I could tell by the sound and the fact that his blob was browner than everyone else's.

"How you feeling?" She asked.

"Thirsty." I told her. She smiled, went over and got a canteen, tipping it into my mouth.

The water tasted sweet.

"We're out of MRE's." Carter said, coming back. "This is the last one."

"Fuck. Ant and Bomber need the food. They're hurt pretty bad." Nancy said.

The blob that was Carter made a motion that I assumed was a nod.

"Who goes to get it?" Carter asked.

There was a long moment of silence.

"Fine, you assholes, I will." Nancy said, standing up.

"I'll go with you." I said, trying to get up.

"Lay back down or I'll kick you in your melon head." Nancy threatened. I held up a hand and laid back down on my back, watching Nancy turn into a blur.

"Hernandez, want to go with me?" She asked.

"No, but I will." He answered.

I watched the blur that was Nancy get dressed, finally putting on a parka.

A rumble made the building shake.

I squinted as Nagle and Hernandez moved up to the doors, Hernandez unlocking it and pulling them open.

Outside the door, in the snow, was a half built snowman. Only the first two spheres set. The third, the smallest, was on the floor, with a blur on top of it.

A form was bent next to it, bent over, and OD green blur.

Nagle didn't say a word, just stepped forward, swinging the axe as the figure jerked up.

It sounded like someone dropping a watermelon when the axe hit.

Nagle shrieked, a high, triumphant sound, and kicked him off the axe. He pitched over backwards as she straddled his body. She raised the axe, and he held his hands up wordlessly, his hands trembling as he begged her silently not to do it.

Right before she brought the axe down between them.

She planted her foot on him, yanking the axe free in a spray of feathers and blood.

And hit him again.

And again.

She yanked the axe free, taking a step to the side and leaning on it, breathing heavily.

"Fuck you and your snowmen." She snarled.

---------------------------

Two days later Bomber was delirious, crying out to his mother, yelling at his sister, and talking to his father. I was in constant pain, and had pissed blood several times in between. Carter was silent, withdrawn, and refused to leave the light of the lantern. Hernandez hovered over the stove, practically snarling at anyone who came close. Jacobs had died in the night, quietly passing away while I was asleep. He'd never regained consciousness after the axe had hit him, and he'd been cold before we realized he was dead when Nancy went to change his IV. She'd cried for over an hour after she had covered his face with the blanket once Carter and Hernandez had moved him over by Lewis.

During the night various people would knock on the door and demand, ask, or plead with us to open the door. We'd often hear scratching outside the door. The wind screamed, sobbing echoed through the room, and footsteps thudded above and below us.

Since just after daylight, we'd been hearing shouting, banging, and raised voices.

We weren't falling for that old bullshit.

Nancy was laying next to me, her hand cupping my cheeks. She'd had a crying jag the night before, and I'd held her. She was smiling into my eyes, her brown eyes warm, and every once in awhile she'd lean forward and kiss my lower lip, gentle and careful of my split lips. It didn't matter that I could hear screaming outside the door, or the thudding of boots on the ceiling, or crashing below us. It didn't matter who was begging, demanding, ordering, at the door. She was warm in my arms, both of us only dressed in T-shirts under the blankets, and that was all it mattered.

My Nancy...

There was a banging on the door, and a voice bellowed out over the wind. Bellowed something new.

"US RANGERS! ANYONE ALIVE?"

We all stared at one another. Carter shook his head and mouthed don't open the door to all of us.

We all nodded, staring at the door.

My hand fumbled out, and I grabbed my knife, trying to get my hand to wrap around the hilt. Nagle sat up and grabbed a bayonet. Hernandez and Carter grabbed axes and stood up.

"US RANGERS! IS THERE ANYONE ALIVE IN HERE?"

I stood up, Nagle next to me, and we stepped between John and door, uncaring that we were only wearing T-shirts. Hernandez and Carter moved up next to me, both of them clad only in boxers.

Yeah, right. Ranger's my ass, we weren't falling for that bullshit.

"WE'RE COMING IN!"

The doors burst open, and we all raised our weapons.

Bright lights blinded us, and I dropped my knife covering my face as my vision went gray and black, staggering as my center of balance skewed.

"We got some live ones!" someone yelled out.

"Drop your weapons!" Another one yelled.

I felt Nancy pull my arm over her shoulders, and I stood there, in the darkness, as boots thudded on the padded floor.

"Get a medic up here!" Someone yelled. I felt hands grab me, and heard Nagle snarl at someone to get the fuck off. She went down on the floor with me, pulling me tight against her.

"Ma'am, set down the knife, let us take care of him."

"No, you can't take him." She sobbed, but I heard something thunk right before both of her arms tightened around me.

"Ma'am, you have to let us take him."

"No. You can't have him." Nancy sobbed, holding tighter.

Hands pulled us apart, and Nagle was crying as I was being laid back.

"What the fuck happened here?" Someone above me asked.

"Tandy..." I whispered.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Epilogue 1

The door to the hospital room opened, and someone new walked through the door. Nancy has visited me, and usually came back by despite visiting hours, sneaking in and laying in the bed with me. Bomber stopped by every day, bouncing back faster than me. I'd been questioned on what had happened, but told them I couldn't remember anything. I told them that the last thing I remembered was Fulda, and then waking up in the hospital.

I lied.

In the doorway stood a total stranger in BDU's. A large man, he filled the doorway, shined boots to blond flat top over six foot tall. As he got closer I noticed he wore Staff Sergeant rank on his collar, and a knife in his boot. The left side of his face was scarred up and he wore an eyepatch. He was smiling as he came in and sat down.

One of the Rangers?

"How ya doing, Ant?" He asked me, reaching out and taking my hand. I gave him a weird look. "What?"

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked him. He stared at me for a long moment, then sighed.

"I'm your older brother, dumbass." He smiled. "Do you remember our father?"

I shook my head.

"It doesn't matter. He's downstairs in the gift shop." He peered at my face closely. "They said you might have brain damage, that your vision's shot."

I nodded slowly.

"Well, shit. Dad's going to see what he can do to keep you in uniform long enough to heal up. He doesn't want you to be put out over this." The other man told me. He looked serious for a moment.

"Do you remember our mother?" He asked.

nasty vile dirty useless little boy...

I flinched.

"Yup." His tone was serious, along with his expression. "Why couldn't you have lost her instead of me." He shook himself and then smiled. "I got good news, she didn't see a reason to fly to Germany just because you're in the hospital." He looked at me and shook his head, his face serious. "What the hell happened, Ant?"

I shrugged.

"Eleven dead, man, and you don't remember anything?" He asked.

"Eleven?" I asked. "Who?"

"Holy shit, your voice does work." He smiled, then was serious again. "Two MP's who went to check on you. The MP wagon was crushed against the barracks. The CQ, found butchered." He was watching my face closely. "SPC Lewis, who died of an embolism from his legs. SPC Jacobs from someone taking an axe to him. They still haven't found Hewitt or Daniels or the Lieutenant's body. They only found the Lieutenant's car up at the motor pool, but no trace of them. They're officially listed as "Lost and presumed dead by misadventure" in the reports."

He was silent for a moment.

"You really don't remember?" He said, taking my hand again. "Goddamn, little brother, you gotta quit getting your ass kicked."

The Lieutenant...

I nodded, thinking fast.

"You're lucky that girlfriend of yours took those correspondence courses." He told me, reaching back down to take my hand. "She pretty much saved you and SPC Bomber."

I nodded again.

...goddamn asshole enlisted puke...

"Don't worry, man. Nurenburg Army Hospital does good work." He let go of my hand and touched his eyepatch. "I'll sit with you." He took my hand again. "Don't worry, it's not like you were a big talker when we were growing up."

"Thanks." I said. I found I actually meant it. He was comforting, and his nametag had the same name and initial as mine. Our middle initials were different though. Still, he felt familiar, and having him there made me feel safe.

Together we sat there in silence, me and a total stranger, waiting on another total stranger.

I wanted Nancy and Bomber.



Epilogue 2

The Texas night was clear and bright, stars shining down. My right arm was in an immobilizer, and the glasses on my face felt weird. The cigarette felt good, the nicotine washing away the nagging pains that had bothered me.

Bomber stood next to me, Nancy on the other, and we all stared at the sky.

"Fuck 2/19th." Nancy said suddenly, breaking the silence of the windy Texas night.

My Nancy...

"What do you think happened to him?" Bomber asked, his voice soft in the Texas night. Behind us, the lights burned brightly in his parents house.

"I don't know." Nancy said, snuggling up to me.

I'd been blind when they'd carried me out, Bomber had been delirious from fever and infection.

But Nagle had just been in shock, sedated like Hernandez and Carter. Carter had fought with the Rangers, and they'd had to disarm him by force. They'd carried him out screaming, strapped down to the stretcher.

She'd looked over to where she'd chopped up the asshole building snowmen, wanting to gloat over the fact that she'd gotten him back for stabbing her through the breast and cutting her face, for breaking Lewis' legs, for rupturing John's appendix, for breaking my skull.

The snow had been pink, indented.

He'd been gone.

Nancy had admitted she'd screamed until they loaded her onto the medavac, until they'd shot her full of drugs.

"Tandy gets hungry, I think." I answered.

The feeling of the icy talon pressing into my wound, then withdrawing, followed by a lewd sucking sound...

I shivered, and Nancy hugged me. The scar on her face was thin and pink, plastic surgery had done wonders. They'd fixed my face, fixed my teeth, but I needed glasses. Bomber had bounced back in record time. All of us had suffered from frostbite. Nagle's toes were bad, and they'd cut away my earlobes. Bomber, of course, was fine, the Texas fuck.

Out in the darkness a cow mooed and a dog barked.

"Fuck 2/19th." Nagle said again.

"Fuck 2/19th." Bomber and I agreed.

Fuck 2/19th...

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

2/19th Special Weapons Group
Restricted Area - Western Germany
Late Fall/ Early Winter - 1989

I leaned against the tank and lit a cigarette, my eardrums aching from the blasts of the 120mm cannons. The tank rocked backwards against my back, but I ignored it. We weren't supposed to be on the firing line, but that was commonly ignored because the C-DAT's made us carry the rounds ourselves, and if they were going to make us carry the rounds then we did it our way. It'd worked well for nearly a month, why change anything?

The 168th Armor commander was a cool dude toward us, even if his men thought he was total cock wrapped in an complete asshole. He let us have our own GP Small tent, let us set our own hours, and pretty much left us alone unless his tanks needed ammo, or he needed us to go out and get him something that we could get him and didn't really want it to be tied to him. We had our own vehicle, CUC-V 15, the Gypsy Wagon, but he gave us fuel coupons, and we went a "acquired" things like candy, porn mags, booze, real food, whatever he wanted.

We didn't ask questions why someone wanted something.

Nancy went by, carrying a box of 120mm APDSFSDU-T in her arms, glaring at me as she went by, but I just smiled at her, and blew smoke at her.

"I oughta set this down and kick your ass." She snarled, but kept walking.

The tanks all fired three rounds, then silence settled down on the range. Normally range control would be yelling to the training NCO's who would be yelling to the various people who needed to know the information. The C-DATs used their onboard radios to talk back and forth, which made the range have an odd silence even with the roar of the turbo diesels from all the tanks.

"Hey, Corporal Ant!" Came from above me. 1LT Victors, a tank commander in however the fucking C-DATs did their rank structure. I'd had it explained to me like a dozen times, but I'd probably know how it worked if I'd cared enough to pay attention.

"More ammo, coming up." I called out, pushing off the tank and heading toward the area where we'd stacked the rounds.

"And put out that cigarette on the range!" He yelled.

"Then get out of your fucking tank and get your fucking ammo yourself!" I tossed over my shoulder. He yelled something back, but I didn't catch it and didn't much care. The BCO had made it pretty obvious that as long as we didn't piss him off, nobody else could touch us, which pissed off some of the more strak officers.

When I walked over the ammo stack, the reason why we did what we want was obvious. Boxes of 120mm APDSFSDU-T were stacked neatly on the pallets, over two dozen pallets were left, each pallet with 40 boxes, each box containing two foil wrapped 120mm armor piercing discarding sabot fin stabilized depleted uranium tracer rounds.

168th had been out of training funds, had just enough to get to the range and use training submunition shot, which no tanker liked to use. He'd told us, privately, that he had a lot of new men that had never handled the hot rounds, and I'd told him that maybe something could be done about that, as long as he'd understand my crew was a bit "eccentric".

So instead of five hundred practice rounds, I'd hauled over 500 war shots, 750 submunitions, and over 15,000 rounds of .50 cal API-T rounds that had been marked condition code H down to him instead of it being shipped back to the States for use, and gotten it for him without him blowing through the rest of the training budget with some creative fast talking to a few people.

Which meant, to the BCO, that I could dance naked on top of the tank with a whiskey bottle in one hand and a naked Nagle in the other, covered in paint and chem light, with a fire built on the back deck of the tank, and he'd bang the drum.

I grabbed two boxes and hefted them, waddling over to the tank. The rounds were heavy as hell on their own, in the box, in the foil, with two of them, they weighed a goddamn ton, but I was used to the weight.

It beat when we were out with 2/27 Field Artillery and had to hand pack FASCAM rounds for the lazy fucks. 200+ pound rounds, and they just stood and watched us hand-hump the fucking things while they kicked back between each firing set.

Only thing lazier than an artilleryman was an officer's driver.

I dropped the boxes, then heaved them one at a time on the side of the tank, scrabbled up onto it, and used my knife to pop the metal bands on the wooden box. I ripped open the foil, pulled out a round, and handed it up to the PFC who was staring at me.

"Don't chew on them or stick them in any orifices." I warned him. He gave me a nasty look and passed it down. Considering he was in shirt sleeves and I could see the heat billowing out of his little mobile fox-hole, his opinion of me didn't matter for shit. I handed off the other three, then jumped down and collected the boxes, heading back to the little ATP we'd built. He yelled something, but I ignored it. It was probably gibberish anyway, it seemed like most tankers could barely speak any recognized language.

Only thing dumber than a tanker was a finance clerk.

Nagle thumped her shoulder into mine when she caught up with me. Her auburn hair was sweat matted, and she snagged my cigarette and took a couple of drags before handing it back as we walked into the ATP. Now, by regulation, you shouldn't smoke in an ammunition transfer point. You could catch the ammo on fire, or if my instructors at AIT were to believed, you'd spontaneously combust and explode with the force of a thousand suns and kill a bunch of Dutch orphans. Oh, wait, the Dutch orphans were what Blackhawks crashed on, my bad. But the chances of a cigarette butt causing fucking depleted uranium on fire was right up there with Nagle suddenly becoming a virgin.

It ain't happening.

It isn't to say she was loose, or a slut, she just liked fucking. It was an open secret in the unit that she was as bisexual as she was predatory, and would chew up someone of either sex and spit them out. As pleasantly as possible of course. A lot of people cut her slack about it. She worked hard, she never complained more than a soldier was expected too, never rode the cotton pony to get out of work, everything a female in the Army should be. A soldier.

Bomber was talking to the 168th BCO, and I could tell by how thick his accent was that he was upset, and when they saw me, they both waved me over.

"Tell him, Ant." Bomber said.

"Uhhh, tell him what?" I asked.

"To tell our new CO that he needs us down here, that we can't be sent back to the unit." Bomber told me, and I knew I'd just gone pale.

Oh fuck. A new commanding officer. That was, what, the third in six months? I just knew he was going to be as stupid and as "We did things this way in my old unit, and since we jammed oranges into our assholes before PT there, why, we should do it here!" as only a new CO for our unit could be.

Not to mention he'd be mad as fuck to be sent out to our own special hell.

We'd been without a CO since the CO had backed his car over half of 1st Platoon, backwards down the hill, crashed into a tree, then fought with the arresting MP's after giving us a "don't drink and drive" speech. He'd blown a .25 at the MP station.

The next guy who'd been grabbed to be our CO had resigned his commission in Frankfurt rather than be sent up to us.

The guy after that had gone AWOL.

The guy after that had been arrested for physically assaulting the 21st Replacement officer who assigned him to our unit. According to the rumor mill he'd rather do time being pounded in the ass at Leavenworth than be our CO.

The guy after that had shown up, taken one look at the company records, and drove off screaming profanity at us. He'd stolen CUC-V 9 and left it in the parking lot of Frankfurt airport.

Gee, you'd think people didn't wanna hang with us.

Every time, the new CO pulled us out of the field, had our rooms inspected, brought some of us (Like my brother and his knuckle dragging thugs, SGT Nalls and his crew, and of course, me, Bomber, and Nagle) and told us that things would be different now that they were in charge, inspected the equipment, changed all kinds of shit around to make it "more efficient", then usually flamed out spectacularly.

And then things went back to normal the way we'd done things since the unit had been reactivated.

My favorite CO had been screaming at my brother after calling both of us in to figure out which one had done it, in front of another unit's CO, when he suddenly got a bloody nose, began barking at us, bit my brother on the leg, and was hauled off barking and howling.

Oh, yeah, and he'd peed on Daffs. Jumped right up on her desk, yanked out his cock, and peed all over her, barking at her the whole time.

Oh, yeah, and humped the file cabinet.

"Sir, someone has to supervise the handling of the ammunition." I told him.

"Someone from 144th Ordnance is on the way." He told me, and shook his head. "Sorry, gentlemen.. ummm.. and lady, but you've got to return to your unit immediately."

Aw, fuck. Not those assholes. Every. Goddamn. Time. I could have sworn that they had a squad on standby, just hanging out in the dayroom smoking cigarettes and pumping iron, just drooling over the chance to fuck up my plans.

"Goddamn it." Nagle swore, pulling off her helmet and throwing it across the ATP so that it bounced it off a stack of empty boxes. Bomber was already in the GP Small, and I could hear him breaking down the cots.

"Hope that this doesn't harm our working relationship." The Colonel told me. I grinned at him and told him that it didn't, that it had been a pleasure working with him. "Good, good, men who understand how this man's army works are hard to come by."

He bid the three of us goodbye and left. I went over and got 5-Ton 35, affectionately nicknamed "Growler" because of a bad tranny gear that made the lower gears sound like a large beast growling. It just made noise, so the mechanics didn't bother replacing it. Not when there was 5-Ton 29, which had a tranny that burst into flame every time you threw it in reverse. Or 5-Ton 16, which the mechanic had gotten into, hit the starter button, and the engine promptly blew up with enough force that the hood had gone through the roof of the motorpool bay and the grill through the wall. Or Deuce-16 which every time it went faster than 10 miles an hour the bed fell off. Or... well, you get the point.

Yeah, 2/19th sucked. Every goddamn thing about 2/19th sucked.

Bomber was working hard, something that he was good at. A Texan boy, born and raised on leather and barbed wire. Honest where it counted, a good drinking buddy, and a man to have your back in fight. I'd once seen him ride and then fuck a bigfoot. When you share that with a person, you kind of become friends. He was as crazy as me, but was my right hand man.

Working fast and hard, it took us about an hour to break down our little camp. To pull down and repack the camo net, take out the tent liner and then fold up the tent and the liner, to start throwing all our gear into Growler. Some of the tankers helped us out and we tossed them the pogey bait we still had and the stack of German hard core porno mags, along with the two cases of beer we had left.

I fired up Growler, Bomber and Nagle jumped into the Gypsy Wagon since it didn't smell like Satan's asshole after a night of bad Taco Bell when it started moving, and away we went.

Three fucking hours back to post.

And of course every goddamn Indy-500 driver in all of space time was on Autobahn 5 and wanted to roar around me shaking their fists and jabbering German at me. Or maybe they were trying to tell me that the vehicle was on fire, or that William Shatner was fighting a gremlin in the back, how the fuck would I know? I was doing 70 MPH in a truck built by Mattel and GMC in 1952, they should have been glad I didn't explode into shards of burning metal as soon as I hit 44 MPH. About the only thing you'd see from the Growler when it hit 88 MPH (downhill with a tailwind) was smoke pouring from underneath and then me by the side of the road with a fire extinguisher. Again.

No matter how much I tried, I couldn't understand German anymore. It all sounded like garbled chattering to me, teasingly familiar but just out of reach. Which really pissed me off, since I'd been working fluent in it the year before. Being around people speaking German for too long, without having anyone speaking English at all, had a tendency to give me a migraine that would make me go blind if it went on for too long. I could read some words, but other words swam and looked like they were made up of alien characters.

Some asshole in a little car cut me off, blaring his horn, but I didn't care, it was the exit anyway. Nagle and Bomber passed me, pointing and laughing, but I knew that they weren't getting the last laugh.

About an hour later we were at the gate of the closed post, with Bomber and Nagle sitting on the bed of the Gypsy Wagon smoking cigarettes. And glaring at me.

The gate guards checked my dispatch, my ID card, then waved me through.

I went about 100 yards then stopped the truck, getting out of it and walking back.

And handed the guards the Gypsy Wagon's dispatch.

"Eat it, Ant." Nagle snarled.

"How about after dinner at the NCO Club?" I shot back. She blushed, Bomber laughed, she punched him in the chest, the gate guards looked at us like we were crazy, we ignored them.

The top of the mountain was hidden, roiling black clouds concealing the snowpack at the top. There was a weird fuzzy look to it all, and I cleaned my glasses to make sure it wasn't my eyes.

"Hey, guys, how's the weather on post?" I asked. Nagle and Bomber were getting in the truck behind me.

"Upper helipad is shut down, it's snowing up there." The NCO said.

I looked up at the mountain again, at the clouds that I knew would be completely covering the top of it, hiding the year round snowpack, and what lay on the other side of the mountain, in an area marked as restricted and off limits on all the maps. We had to return to the unit, for God knew how long, while some new poor sucker figured out how the unit worked and made our lives a living hell till he got with the program.

A place where the winter before we'd lost 38 personnel due to "Death by Misadventure" and other fun causes. A place that was cut off for days or weeks at a time by the snow when it started to fall.

Where it was snowing.

Fuck.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I drug my field jacket and the liner out of my rucksack, threw on my cold weather cap and gloves, then climbed back into my Korean War veteran mechanical mule and fired it back up.

I ran in granny low the whole way up the back hill, the stink of Satan's scorched asshole filling the cab as the tranny roared like a T-Rex who'd just gotten slammed in the ass while it was sleeping. I knew better than let the automatic transmission try to do it itself, the Growler would shift up to third gear and the engine would scream like a orgasming banshee while I rolled backwards down the hill and the tranny went "hurrrr".

Deadman's corner had snow blowing, but there was a rescue crew from main post. An M-113 was overturned, and they were loading body bags into the ambulance. They'd have to change the sign again. During the summer, during REFORGER 88, some asshole had taken the corner with a load of troops in the back of a 5-ton and rolled it, killing like 30 poor bastards. The funny part? An ambulance crew from a unit that was from Stateside taking part in REFORGER took the corner too fast, rolled the ambulance, and died when the ambulance exploded. Well, it seemed funny when I heard it. Maybe you just had to be there.

We stopped at the wire, and I unlocked the gate, walking over and taking a leak on the pole that held up the sign "RESTRICTED AREA" and all that good shit. I hated the goddamn place, which is one of the reasons I lived out of my rucksack and duffle bags. Sure, I had some sweet shit in my barracks room, but my room mates and my brother and his knuckle-draggers got more use out of my shit than I did.

After about an hour Bomber and Nagle caught up while I sat in the cab of Growler and smoked a cigarette. Both of them were smoking, and Nagle was drinking a beer. Assholes had gone onto main post and grabbed beer, booze, and probably some yummy goodies to munch on. They both gave me the finger as they went by, so I dragged the gate shut and fired up Growler again.

Hopefully my brother hadn't grabbed the car and left post already. If he hadn't, I wouldn't ask the platoon sergeant or my section leader for shit, I'd jump in the car and be fucking gone till Monday without saying a word to anyone aside from signing the CQ log and turning in my sensitive items and weapons. I didn't want to spend the night in the barracks any more than I wanted to have my balls replaced by rabid howler monkeys.

The snow was crackling as I drove through it, heading steady up in elevation, bouncing off the windshield, more ice crystals than real snow, with visibility dropping to about 50 feet.

I took a left at the little branch and hit the gas to surge up the heavy duty incline to the motorpool, and saw Nagle outside the vehicle arguing with some peach fuzz faced guy and an ugly chick, neither of which I'd ever seen before. Everyone broke off arguing and stared at me as I brushed the fence with the side of the vehicle, left it idling, and climbed out the passenger door.

And promptly fell on my ass.

Bomber, of course, laughed at me.

Walking over, dispatch in hand, I saw that ugly girl and the Beav were looking at Nagle's dispatch like she was trying to teach them hyperspace physics, and sighed to myself.

"Problem?" I asked, stopping next to Nagle.

"This is a restricted area, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to take your vehicles and leave or we'll have to call the MP's." the kid told me.

What?

"No shit it's a restricted area, genius, unlock the fucking gate so I can get the fuck out of here before the abominable snowman rapes me or something." I growled at him. "I need to turn in my vehicle and get back to the company."

"Sir, I repeat, you must leave this area." The girl said.

"Look, I'll say this once. I'm this god forsaken unit, I'm tired, I have to turn in my weapon, and I want to get drunk. Unlock the fucking gate, let me return my fucking vehicle, and get out of my way." I told her.

"Sir, I know virtually everyone in the unit, and I can safely say I've never seen you before." She sneered. "And since this bitch here..." She nodded at Nagle, who got that 'it's killing time!' look of hers "Claims you're in my platoon, I can safely say that you need to return to your vehicles, and leave this restricted area, or we will detain you until the MP's arrive."

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked. "Get the Sergeant of the Guard out here right fucking now."

"Sir, we must insist you take your vehicles and return the way you came or we will use for to detain you, this is your last warning." Ugly Girl told me, and began bringing around her weapon.

One thing about 2/19th, is that weapons on guard duty and on CQ were not just for show. Every soldier on guard duty and on CQ carried a basic combat load. Back in the day, that meant six 30-round magazines, bayonet, four grenades, and at least 1 flare. If you carried a pistol, you carried four magazines. We never got the M-9 9mm PoS, so it was all .45's. You were only required to give 2 warnings, a warning shot, another warning, and then lethal force. We were literally taught to do this: "HALT! HALT <BANG> HALT! <Shoot to Kill>" all as fast as we could if we were in danger. Sergeants of the Guard were told it was better to error on the side of caution.

Which excuses what Nagle and I did next.

Peach Fuzz was dropping his weapon off his shoulder, and Ugly Girl had dropped the Gypsy Wagon's dispatch on the ground and was bringing her weapon up. Both weapons had magazines in the wells.

Nagle kneed Peach Fuzz in the nuts and picked his rifle up off the ground.

I punched Ugly Girl in the face and snatched her weapon out of her hands, turning it around and pressing the muzzle in her throat.

"Are you fucking retarded?" I snarled, shoving hard enough she gagged. She went to grab the upper reciever and I leaned harder. "Who's the goddamn motorpool Sergeant of the Guard?"

"Fuck you..." She gasped, her lip starting to bleed.

"Wrong answer..." I glanced at her collar on her field jacket and her hat then her nametag. "PFC Oakes." I yelled without turning around. "BOMBER!"

"Dude, what?" He asked, stepping up next to me. "You don't need to yell."

"Take the fucking rifle." I told him, and he reached out and pulled it out of my hands, grinning at Ugly Girl.

"Don't fuck with my boy." He said, then twitched the rifle. "Hands behind your head." She glared as she did so, and I reached down and scooped her radio off her belt, keying it. Nagle looked down at Peach Fuzz and then kicked him in the stomach before looking at me like she was innocent.

"Looks like the Private fell down and hurt himself." She told me.

"Yup, I saw it, he slipped on the ice." Bomber answered, and then winked at Ugly Girl. Fucking Bomber, holding an assault rifle in a woman's face and still all Texas suave. (Read: not very)

"Break net. This is Corporal Ant, need Sergeant of the Guard at motorpool main gate, over." I said, keying the radio.

"Get up, face the fence, dumbass." Nagle ordered, prodding the kid. He groaned and followed instructions.

"Don't worry, PFC Oakes, I'm sure that Sergeant Roberts will forgive you." I said, squinting into the snow. It looked like someone was on their way.

"Who?" She asked, glancing at me real quick.

"Sergeant Roberts." She still looked at me blankly. "Sergeant First Class Roberts, Third Platoon Platoon Sergeant?" Still stared at me. "What about Lieutenant Turner?"

"I don't know either of those people, and I've been in Third Platoon for almost nine months." She told me, glaring.

"Really?" I asked. She nodded. "Both of them are gone? Wow." I looked at Bomber. "Wonder why they got put out?"

"Probably gay lovers." Bomber laughed.

Someone was coming out of the snow, limping on crutches.

"Probably refused to reup when they were told they mission essential." Nagle snarled. She was still carrying a grudge over being told she couldn't PCS as part of reenlisting. They'd forced her to request a Permanent Duty Station or be Article 15'd. They didn't say what for, but Nagle wasn't exactly a good girl.

"Who's in charge of first squad?" I asked her.

"The arrogant asshole you're pretending to be." Ugly Girl told me.

"Well, at least that asshole's still here." Bomber laughed. "She's probably mad because he fucked her."

"Fuck you!" She yelled.

I didn't recognize the guy who was walking up to the gate on crutches, but still waited, Bomber holding the rifle on Ugly Girl, and Nagle pushing the rifle into the back of Peach Fuzz's neck. I bent down and picked up the Gypsy Wagon's dispatch and put it in the same hand as mine.

"What the fuck is going on here?" The guys asked. A Staff Sergeant, by the name of Kellman according to his nametags.

"You're gate guards are retards." Nagle snarled.

"We're robbing them." Bomber added.

"Shut up, both of you." I tossed off, then looked at him. "We tried to tell your little Privates that we're in this unit, and they drew down on us."

"Who the fuck are you?" He asked me. Oh, great, more Who's on First? bullshit.

"Corporal Ant, Fifth Squad 3rd Platoon." I told him.

"Since I'm the Section Sergeant for that squad, I doubt that." He told me.

"Just look at my dispatch." I said, pushing them through the gap in the gate. He looked doubtful but picked it up and opened them.

"You checked these vehicles out in March?" He asked, looking through the pages. "You've put over 10,000 miles on them?"

"Yes, Sergeant." I told him.

"What about maintenance." He asked.

"Host unit handled it. Paperwork is in the dispatch." I told him. "So, can we put these two pieces of shit up and go back to the barracks?"

"Gonna let go of my privates?" He asked. Nagle and Bomber snickered and I glared.

"Lettum go." I said. "And give them back their weapons."

They handed back the weapons while the SoG opened the gates. We got back in the vehicles, and pulled them in. I drove over to the line of 5-ton trucks, watching the bumper numbers, looking for the gap where The Growler went and stopped.

5-Ton 34... 5-Ton 35... 5-Ton 36...

Wait... what?"

Sitting there, looking all spiffy, was a 5-Ton truck. With the same bumper number. Nice of those assholes to tell me they were going to replace my Korean War piece of shit with one made sometime in the last 20 years.

I just pulled it to the end of the line, parked it, turned it off, chained the steering wheel, threw down the chock blocks and oil pan, then ran a half-assed PCMS before heading in with my shit.

I was fucking freezing.

Bomber and Nagle were standing outside the guy's office waiting on me. I turned in the dispatch, and we headed back out.

On the way out the gate, Nagle grabbed Ugly Girl by the front of the field jacket and yanked her forward and up so they were nose to nose.

"You ever call me a bitch again, you ugly little shit, and I'll break my foot off in your ass, got me?" She snarled. The cold had paled her skin, but her fury made the long thin scar down the side of her face turn purple. Ugly Girl nodded, and I just smiled at Private Peach Fuzz. "You see me in the hallway, you turn around or get against the wall, you understand?" Ugly Girl nodded again. "You don't even speak to me unless you have to, and you don't even mention my name to anyone, got it?" The girl nodded, and Nagle threw her hard against the fence.

"And if you ever try to point a weapon at any of us, I'll shove it up your ass." She tossed over her shoulder. On the way down the footpath to the barracks she snarled "I hate Privates."

I chuckled, keeping an eye on the yellow painted railing that was on the side of the path. That was new, and a good idea. Till the snow got too high, you wouldn't get lost on the way to the motorpool.

We walked down to the company, the big building looming out of the snow, and I shivered. The repairs from last winter were finished, but then we'd been gone since March, so even the Army was able to get shit done at that speed. The white picket fence was back, and cars were back across the street where people should know better to park during the winter.

I grinned, remembering the day a Private got in a 6K rough terrain forklift, and accidentally backed it through the fence and down onto the cars below, totaling 2nd Platoon's Platoon Leader's brand new car. In my defense, I thought it was funny since he'd been bragging that it would take us enlisted ten years to save that kind of money.

Karma was alive and well in 2/19th.

The middle stairwell door was open a crack when Bomber checked it, so we headed to our rooms by unspoken agreement. Nagle kept going toward Titty Territory, Bomber and I headed up the stairs to the second floor.

My room, good ol' Room 255, had music coming from it. Fucking figures, my room mates were in and using my stereo, or my asshole brother was in there and had probably drank all my booze. Bomber waved, kept going toward 279, while I stopped at my room, dug out my key, and unlocked the door.

When the door swung open, I saw 3 guys sitting in chairs, listening to a little boom box, and drinking beer.

Great, new room mates.

I drug my two duffel bags behind me into the room and stopped in front of my locker. The three guys were staring at me while I grabbed the standard US Army brass lock and stuck the key in.

It didn't work.

"Hey! What the fuck are you doing?" One of them said, jumping up from his chair.

"Putting my fucking gear away, why?" I asked, turning around and dropping my ruck and rifle on the floor.

"Wrong room, asshole." Another said, standing up.

"Room 255, right?" I asked.

"Yeah, so?" The first one said. All three of them were in civilian clothing.

"My room, you little dickweed." I snarled. "Who the fuck took my lockers?"

"I don't know who the fuck you are, but get the fuck out!" The leader told me, stepping forward.

"Make me, you little shit." I answered. I was sick and tired of the bullshit. I didn't want to come back to the unit anyway, and now someone so fucking new he squeaked was giving me a rash of shit?

He walked up, went to push me, and I punched him in the throat, throwing a right into his gut then smashing a knee into his face when he doubled over.

"How about you two little assholes?" I asked, staring at the other two. "Get the fuck out of my room. Go sleep in the dayroom." I grabbed Bleedy McBigMouth and slung him out in the hallway, bouncing him headfirst off the door across from me. Simon's door.

"Fuck you, this is our room." One of them said.

"Fine, we do this the hard way." I told them, walking forward. Both of them held up their hands and went past me.

"We'll be back with the CQ, you asshole." One told me.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I kicked the door shut behind them, grabbed my shit, and went into the room.

Nothing of mine was on the walls. My posters were gone, my awards were gone, everything was gone. Even the Amiga 500 I'd bought to replace my busted one and my IBM were missing.

Hearing a racket in the hallway I grabbed my rifle on the way by and went out the door. At the end of the hallway Bomber was fighting with three guys, two of them holding them and one beating them.

"HEY!" I yelled, running down the hallway, "Get the fuck off him."

One of them turned and looked at me. "Beat it, asshole, this doesn't concern you." He looked back at his buddy.

So I clocked him in the kidney and kicked the legs out from under his buddy.

Bomber and I finished with the three guys who had beating on him, Bomber dragging one of them to the end stairwell and throwing him bodily down the stairs before stomping back.

"What the fuck was that about?" I asked, looking at the two moaning guys at our feet.

"Beats the shit out of me. They started yelling at me to get out then drug me out in the hall and started kicking my ass!" Bomber yelled.

"Fuck this, grab your gear, let's go down to the CQ Area." I told him. "I think they changed our rooms."

"Nice of them to fucking say something." Bomber bitched, running in to grab his rifle. He paused to kick one of the guys. "You better hope that they changed my room, you little cocksucker. I'm gonna remember you."

"Cool it." I told him. We went down to my room and grabbed my gear. Down the hallway when we reached the double doors we saw the three guys I'd thrown out of my room coming back with like 10 guys, so we took a quick right then took the stairs to the first floor and cut through Titty Territory in time to see Nagle slam the door behind her.

"They moved our rooms, Ant!" She yelled. She looked pissed.

"Yeah, me and Bomber figured that out." I said.

"Judging from your eye, Ant, looks like you solved it like boys." She snarled. "Let's go get the CQ and turn in our weapons."

In the CQ Area was a four man crew that was sitting there reading books. When I walked up everyone turned and stared at us.

"What are you doing in these barracks?" The CQ asked.

"We live here." Bomber said.

"We're part of the unit." Nancy offered.

The CQ stared at my nametag for a long time, then looked up at me. "I know Sergeant Monkey, buddy, and you ain't him."

"That's my brother." I told him, Nagled laughed.

He looked doubtful.

"Look, man, just get the armorer so we can turn in our shit, sign in, find out where they moved our shit and get some sleep." I said.

"Run up and get the armorer." The CQ said.

"He's in the dayroom watching TV." The PV2 said, heading toward the dayroom.

What the hell was Clance doing in the Dayroom? That motherfucker had a palace for a room and lived like a king.

The guy that came out of the dayroom was someone I'd never seen before.

"Who the fuck are you?" He asked. Man, I was getting tired of this shit.

"Corporal Ant, Specialist Bomber, Specialist Nagle, 5th squad, 3rd Platoon, 2/19th Special Weapons Group." I answered. "We need to turn in our weapons and NVG's."

"And gas masks." He added.

"Nope, I work at a live point." I told him.

"What?"

"My ammunition site has chemical weapons on it. My mask stays with me." I told him, patting it.

"We'll see about that." He answered, but led us downstairs to the armory anyway. We all cleared our weapons walking down the stairs, and I checked my 203 to make sure I didn't have anything alive in it. Like a big hairy spider like last time. A big hairy jumping spider. A big hairy biting jumper spider. That liked officers.

He unlocked the cell door, unlocked the main door, then slammed the cell door behind him, closing the lower half of the main door, then stared at us.

"Well?" He asked.

I handed him the magazines first, and then handed him my weapon. He turned to the racks, stood there for a second, and came back.

"This isn't ours." He told me.

"What?" I stared at him for minute. "Yes it is. Number 171, see, right there!"

He pointed at the weapon rack. "Number 171, right there!"

I turned and looked at Nagle, who just shrugged and handed her weapon.

Same thing.

Bomber leaned forward. "Say, pardner, mind checking to see if number 172 is there?"

The guy checked, then came back. "Yes it is." He thought for a moment. "Let me check your weapons against the serial numbers, see if anything comes up. I've only been the armorer about a month." He smiled at us as we handed over our weapons and he took them over to his desk, taking a few minutes to situate himself.

"What the hell?" Nancy asked.

"Dunno. Maybe they lost us?" Bomber suggested.

We stood there, lighting up cigarettes and eventually sitting down.

"How's it going?" I called out.

"I've got 500 serial numbers to check, Corporal." he told me, "Just be patient."

"Hey, what about our pistols?" Bomber suggested.

"I'll check them, let me see them." The armorer said. I handed my pistol to Nagle, who took Bombers, and handed them over. He checked for a moment, then said: "Nope they're already turned in."

"Fine." I grumbled, lighting about the third cigarette.

After a few more moments I heard a boot squeak out in the hallway and turned to look.

Something popped into the room, skittering across the floor, and my brain registered it before I even knew what it was consciously.

"GRENADE!" all three of us yelled at once, throwing ourselves away from it.

It went off and the world vanished in a white flash and a high pitched ringing noise.

I was thrown out on the ground, face first on the floor, my glasses coming off, and a rifle was jammed in my ear. Before I could even figure out what was happening, my arms were wrenched behind my back and cuffed. Hands patted me down and I felt my extra magazines pulled from my pockets, my two knives removed, and the grenades we hadn't handed back plucked from my ammo pouches. Someone dragged me up by my collar, forcing me on my knees.

My vision came back with purple splotches, everything blurry.

A half dozen Rangers stood in front of us.

All of them pointing their weapons at us.

"Now, just who the fuck are you?" A lieutenant I'd never seen before asked me, folding his arms and looking down at us.

"Oh, shit." Bomber breathed.

"Corporal Ant, 5th squad, 3rd platoon, 2/19th Special Weapons Group." I answered, looking at.

"Mister, I'm the platoon leader for that platoon, and I've never seen you before in my life." He told me. One of the Rangers handed him my wallet and he opened it, then pulled out my ID cards. "Geneva Convention ID, Military ID, Washington State Driver's License, German Driver's License, meal card, key cards for FSTS 317, call sign card." He handed them to the Ranger and looked at me.

"Only one problem, whoever you are." He told me.

"You're an asshole?" Bomber suggested. There was a smack and Bomber groaned.

"We just had a company inspection for the new company commander, and I don't recall there being two Monkeys in this unit." He told me. "We had 100% accountability, and I would have remembered someone like you, and would have remembered if there were two trouble makers with the same last name."

"That's my brother. Get him, he can verify me." I said.

"Hey, what about me?" Nagle asked.

"I think I'd remember someone like you too." He sneered.

"Yeah, she's got nice tits, don't she." Bomber helped. Another smack. The LT looked like he had to pee.

"SGT Monkey is currently deployed, as you would know if you were indeed his brother." The LT said.

"What do you want done with them, sir?" One of the Rangers asked.

"Personally, I say throw them out in the snow without any gear." The officer smiled nastily. "However, the CO is on his way up, along with the Sergeant Major and the XO."

I named all three and he shook his head. "Sorry, but it looks like your information is out of date. None of those men have been here in at least six months."

"Who sent you?" The LT asked.

"V Corps told 168th Armor that we were supposed to come back." I said. "We loaded up our gear and headed back, dropped off our vehicles at the motorpool and came back to the barracks."

"We heard about that stunt." The LT sneered. "You assaulted the two gate guards, lied about your vehicles, which the Sergeant of the Guard discovered when he went to put the dispatches back and found that those vehicles had not left the motorpool. You returned here, broke in to three rooms, assaulted several soldiers in this unit, then tried to pass off fake weapons to the armorer, who realized what you had done and stalled you after hitting his panic button." He smiled like he was Sherlock fucking Holmes and had just caught Moriarty with a Tijuana hooker, a donkey, and two midgets.

"The vehicles and weapons aren't fake. We drew them when we left in March." Bomber shot. "For fuck's sake, you've been bouncing us from field exercise to field exercise."

"What do you mean, fakes? Did we just hand them drawings or something?" Nagle asked.

"I'm in this goddamn unit! Check the fucking records! I'm in charge of FSTS 317, for God's sake." I told him.

"Wrong. FSTS 317 was shut down in April of this year." He told me.

"Bullshit. We were out there less than a week ago to do inventory." I told him. "For a place that's shut down there's a fuckton of ammunition there."

"Hey, can I have a cigarette?" Bomber asked. Someone smacked him again.

"I assure you, according to company records, that place was shut down long before I got here." He sneered.

"Well your company records are full of shit. I've got the keys to the whole goddamn place in my rucksack, the keycards to it, and less than a week ago we inventoried about 10,000 fucking 8" VX rounds." I told him, my voice raising as I went on. "Your records are fucking WRONG! Call V Corps, ask them! WE JUST FUCKING INVENTORIED IT!"

That got me a smack on the back of my head and I groaned. That shit hurt. My skull was a hell of lot better than it had been a year before, but it was still a little sensitive when someone hit me in the back of my head.

They made us wait until the CO, XO, and CSM came in. The LT showed them our ID cards, showed them the stuff they'd pulled out of our gear, including my keybox, and my inventory sheets.

The CSM left, and came back about five minutes later with the unit group photo from REFORGER the year before and looked at it really close and then checked the paper behind it. Then showed the CO and the XO, then they came over to me and looked down at me.

"Son, when was the last time you were back in garrison?" The Colonel asked me.

"March."

"You know it's October, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you've been supporting other units this entire time? On who's authorization?" He asked.

"Brigade. We couldn't get a hold of the unit, so we were contacting Brigade." I told him. "They'd tell us where to go next and who to work for."

"Uncuff them." The Colonel said, and waited for as we stood up, massaging our wrists.

"I'm going to remember you." Bomber threatened one of the Rangers. The guy curled his lip and Bomber smiled.

"Cool it." I warned, then followed the Colonel into his office. He was pulling out files out of the desk drawer.

We sat there for over two hours, the Rangers left, Bomber threatened the guy that kept smacking him again, and Nagle went to sleep.

Our weapon serial numbers weren't on the lists, but they were listed in older files as "destroyed", same with the rest of our stuff. The vehicles were marked down as "wrecked" and "depot", and our names had been erased out of the company's records. Our weapons, gear, and vehicles all had the same "Destroyed" date, and their was an accident report in the files that we'd been killed in on Dead Man's Curve. In April.

A quick call to Brigade, and they confirmed we did exist, and they'd been hearing from us regularly. The description of Nagle as a "large breasted woman with brown hair, a scar on her face, and a nasty attitude." cinched it.

They called in Second Platoon's platoon Sergeant, who came in, looked at us, confirmed we were who we said they were, and told us: "I thought you guys were dead."

The story around the unit was we'd been killed back in April. They even sent our shit home.

As near as we figured out, between one CO and the next, someone panicked when they couldn't find us, couldn't find ANY of the shit for the site, couldn't find our gear, so they did some creative paperwork to keep the new CO from climbing up everyone's asses.

And then forgot about us.

Even my brother thought I'd been killed.

But still, some nights, when the wind and the snow howled, we had to wonder...

Were we in the right place? They had us listed as dead. Some people claimed to have seen the wreckage of the vehicles get towed back to post. Our shit had been shipped back to the States.

Did we take a wrong turn?

Every time something strange happened, they all looked at Nagle, Bomber, and me. Our Platoon Sergeant told us that if he could authorize a co-ed room, he'd put the three of us in the same room because we "creeped everyone else out" and he didn't trust us.

It made the whole winter surreal.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Interlude

Rogue Valley, Oregon
Winter, 2010

I finished writing the story about Tandy, Winter 1988, and the murder spree, and started what led to the 1989 incidents, planning on talking about what happened that winter since the after actions reports were written and we were all told to shut the fuck up forevermore.

The prologue satisfied me. I'd skipped a bit, like being smacked around and Bomber kicking the living shit out of one of the Rangers in the hallway before the guy's buddies could pull John off of him, or the exact fallout, but that was OK, the gist of what happened was there.

I got up from my computer, rolling a cigarette and pulling on my boots. It was night time, and I figured I'd have a smoke on the back porch real quick. I'd quit smoking in the house when the kids were born. I grabbed my trusty old jacket and pulled it on, glancing at the TV on my way across the front room. Smiling and running over what I wanted to put in, what I wanted to leave out, and what I figured nobody would ever believe from that god awful winter, I reached out and pulled open the blinds to the back porch.

Snow was coming down steadily, I could see the glow of the lights on the other side of the yard, but I could barely make out the fence and beyond that, nothing but snow.

That wasn't what held my eyes.

There were bootprints in the snow, leading up to the door.

Old style combat boot prints.

Six steps. Right to the door.

None leading away.

Maybe I don't want a cigarette that badly.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

2/19th Special Weapons Group Barracks
Restricted Area - Western Germany
Early Winter - 1989



Day: One

Rear Detachment was drawn up while the strutting martinet they'd left in charge walked back and forth in front of us in his Class-A uniform, and the rest of us stood at attention in our Class-A's waiting for him to get done with his lecture on just how Rear-D was going to be run.

"...not having any of you fuck this up..." he was blathering. I was only paying half-assed attention to him, instead checking the faces of the other eighteen people around me aside from Bomber, Nagle, the LT, and Sergeant Tee. Bomber stood on my left, Nagle in between us. He'd arranged us into 5 man "squads" (which was like half the fucking size of my squad) and put what few NCO's there were in charge.

Assholes...

"...check in at 2100, and CQ will be doing bed checks at zero hours, formation every morning down here at zero six for PT." He stopped and turned to face us. Only thing worse than an ROTC butterbar was a shiner (1st LT, a nice shiny silver bar to replace the hunk of butter. Most of them seemed to spent a lot of time shining it on their softcap) with a bright new rank pin. He tried glaring at all of us, but it looked more like he had to take a leak real bad then anything else.

"Everyone will stay in their rooms, unless I personally authorize a switch in rooms." He said, then nodded at Staff Sergeant Terrance. "Go ahead and assign them details from the list I gave you." He told him. T saluted him, which he seemed pleased about, and we all watched as he returned the salute then walked away.

"All right, guys and girls, the Lieutenant has some barracks maintenance he wants done. I'm going to divide you up by squads to go ahead and handle it." T said. "First squad?"

"Here, Sergeant." I snapped out.

"You, Specialist Nagle, and Specialist Bomber are to report to his office." He told me, and Bomber groan beside me.

That was never good. I didn't know jack or shit about the LT, except since he'd shown up right after the roads got cleared and everyone abandoned us to go on Christmas leave he'd been nothing but a Grade-A asshole. Some Worst Cav fucker with a serious attitude that seemed to say "We did it differently in First Cav..." right before he gave some retarded suggestion that fucked everything up.

I hated him with a passion.

Formation broke up, with people getting assigned jobs that were vital to national security like buffing the first floor hallway or scrubbing the tile in the stairwell to get the stains out of them (HAH! Fat fucking chance!) or taking inventory and readiness inspection of... the chairs in the day room.

"What do you suppose LT Wondurbar wants?" I grunted.

"Probably wants to know if Nagles tits taste as nice as they look." Bomber suggested.

"I'm going to kick you in the balls." Nagle snarled.

PFC Kebble was sitting behind her desk, sneering at us when we walked into the orderly room. She was sitting there in her Class-A's, showing off the AAM's and ARCOM's she gotten for sucking dick above and beyond the call of duty.

Oh, yeah, and losing everyone's paperwork.

Only thing dumber than an orderly room clerk was a tanker.

"Acting CO in?" I asked, unnecessarily. It was fucking snowing again. Ain't none of us were going anywhere.

"I'll check." She said, her voice all sweetness and light. I restrained an urge to lean over the desk and punch her in fucking face. I couldn't prove it, but I knew she was the bitch who'd falsified the paperwork on us. Her sweet little smile while I tried to straighten everything out and the nasty little smirk she got when she thought I wasn't looking told me that.

She picked up her phone and slowly dialed the number, taking her sweet fucking time like the numbers kept shifting and she hate to wait for the randomization to finish. Her nails, easily an inch in length, were painted bright crimson, with a rhinestone on each one. By contrast, Nagle's nails were chipped, blackened, and she avoided fingernail polish unless it was the weekend or we were going on leave.

"Sir, Corporal Ant and his men are here to see you." The emphasis she put on the word and the way she looked at Nagle let us all know what she thought of Nancy.

Fuck. You. Whore. Nagle mouthed, then made a little O with her mouth and pushed her tongue against her cheek a few times.

"I'll tell them, Sir." She said sweetly, her face hard and eyes smoldering with hate. She hung up and looked at us for a long moment. "He said he's ready to see you."

Nagle opened her mouth and I grabbed her by the elbow, pulling her along with me. "Just leave it." I put my Class-A envelope hat into my left hand, thumb along the crease, knocked three times on the door and waited.

"Enter." Oh boy! I was being let into the promised land! I opened the door, marched neatly into the office, and stopped two paces from the front of the desk, came to attention, and saluted, holding the salute.

"Corporal Ant, Specialist Nagle, Specialist Bomber, reporting as ordered." I stated, staring at the window behind him.

It was blank white. The snow was over it by about 10 feet.

He stared at me for a long time, making me wait, before finally returning the salute. A petty way of letting me know who was in charge. He had my Smith file and my PRP report on his desk, along with Bomber's and Nagle's. They were spread a hand width apart, each Smith File rotated just enough that we could tell it was our PRP report underneath it.

They were supposed to be secure documents. The PRP file was the Personnel Reliability Program file, a mandatory little piece of Cold War Bullshit containing everything from how we liked to fuck to who our teacher was in 3rd Grade, along with mental health analysis and all that fun stuff. It was supposed to be Eyes Only and required a special side clearance to be able to read. The Smith File was the notes that the CO took on you during your time in the unit. The PRP file was kept in the vault in the supply room, the Smith File in the CO's safe. At least he didn't have the Top File, which was the First Sergeant's file on you.

They were supposed to be for the commander of the unit only. I just knew he was going to spend the day down here reading everyone's file.

Asshole...

We waited, he should have told us to stand at ease, or invited us to sit in one of the chairs, it was common courtesy.

A shiner never bothers with that, and First Cav probably didn't do it that way.

"You might be wondering why you are in here..." He started.

You want to fuck me?

"There are certain... details... (dun dun DUH!) I want to discuss with the three of you that I have found in your files." He smiled, and it wasn't a nice one.

Nope, you want to fuck us.

------------

"Fucking asshole." Nagle snarled as we headed up the stairs. "I oughta stab his ass."

"Who the hell does he think he is asking me that?" Bomber growled, slamming a fist against the top of the railing and making the whole thing vibrate.

"He's just a goddamn shiner. Let it go." I said. I was still angry enough I was shaking. "Fucking Cav shithead. This ain't the World, this is goddamn Hell's Icebox."

"Confined to our rooms until further notice." Nagle snarled. "We'll be ready to kill ourselves before a week is out." She snatched open the door to Titty Territory and stomped through without a word, leaving Bomber and me to head up the stairs to the third floor.

"Think we'll have time to hide our contraband?" Bomber asked when we pushed through the door and into the hallway. We hugged the wall so we didn't get in the way of the guy stripping the floor with a buffer and the green stripping pad. He nodded to us as we went by.

"We'll need to work fast." I told him. I opened the door to our room and Bomber headed to the dresser right off the bat, grabbing bottles. "Leave some of the open ones, he knows we drink." Bomber nodded and grabbed a chair so he could climb up to the wall lockers set into the wall. I pulled unlocked and pulled open the top drawer of my 3-drawer chest, grabbing out a handful of my knives. I left the ones that didn't matter that much, making sure I grabbed the Russian bayonet and my Gerber, then moved over to the fridge, laying down on the floor. Bomber had pushed up the top of the wall locker and was setting the alcohol on top of the locker next to it. I reached back into the fridge and felt around till I found the gap above the compressor and began shoving my knives into the space. Barely enough room for the five of them, but better than nothing.

"Grab my uniform, I want to change real quick, it'll look like we were wasting time." I told him. He nodded and grabbed my keys, pulling open my wall locker and pulling out a fresh set of cold weather BDU's. They were ironed and creased, nicely starched and hardly worn. I always kept 4 sets of BDU's for garrison separate from my work uniforms. First trick I'd learned.

We hid what we could as fast as we could, then hid stuff we didn't care about in the obvious places. Under the mattresses, in our laundry bags, at the back of the bathroom cabinet, under our bed. Places any dipshit knows to check.

Not finding anything would make him suspicious.

We'd barely gotten dressed when the door opened up.

Bastard didn't even bother to knock...

Sergeant Tee followed him in, giving us an apologetic look at the breach of etiquette. The way he strutted into the room just pissed me off. He spent time checking the room for dust (HA! Fat chance!) then tossed the place, dumping out laundry bags, digging through our wall lockers, and opening up the mouthwash bottles to sniff them for alcohol. (Please, a real pro mixes vodka and cherry jello in a strawberry shampoo bottle... amateur)

"Why haven't you thrown this jacket away?" He asked at one point, standing in front of my civilian clothes locker. He was holding the sleeve of my old Levi jacket, holding the cuff between his thumb and forefinger with an expression of distaste. The sleeve was stained with old faded blood.

"Souvenir, sir." I answered.

He pulled it out of my wall locker by the hanger and looked at it. It had been stitched back together, but it was obvious that it had been cut apart at one point. Under the jacket was a T-shirt that was bloodstained. He made a noise of disgust and tossed it on Bomber's bed, then swept his eyes over the pictures I had taped to the inside of the wall locker.

Moving to Bomber's personal locker he stared for a long time at the pictures on his locker before giving it a cursory once over and walking back into the main room.

The whole time we'd stood at parade rest at the end of our respective beds.

"The two of you don't have a room mate?" He asked, somewhat unnecessarily, since the third bed was stripped.

"No, sir." We chorused.

He smiled again, and I felt my stomach drop out.

"That's perfect. That solves one of my problems neatly." He told us, that nasty smile reappearing.

--------------------

The kicks to the bottom of the door shook it, and it took Bomber a minute to get up and reach the door, during which time the door kept getting kicked. Bomber yanked it open, and the person on the other side pushed past him, dragging dufflebags, rucksack, and blankets behind them.

Outside the door PFC Hendricks from Motor Pool Platoon stood outside, his expression carefully blank. Bomber shrugged and slammed the door as the person stomped into the center of the room and threw their gear onto the bottom bunk of the sole set of bunk beds in the room.

"This is fucking bullshit." Nagle snarled, throwing herself into a chair.

"Yup." Bomber agreed. He dug out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, tucked the lighter back into the pack, and tossed it to Nagle.

"Thanks." She lit one and tossed the pack to me.

"What did he tell you the reasoning was?" I asked, lighting one up and tossing it back to John.

"This way he only has to put a guard on one door, instead of having two guards." Nancy said, blowing smoke at the ceiling. "I am soooo going to JAG when I get a chance. This is against fucking regs."

"Yup." John said again. I pulled a bottle of beer out and tossed it to her.

"Did you guys hear what's going on downstairs?" She asked, cracking open the beer and taking a pull off of it.

"Nope." John again.

"He's officially closing the Day Room, all the Rec Rooms, the library, and the Game Rooms. Outside of duty hours, everyone is restricted to their rooms." Nancy told us, then took another deep pull of the Tucher. "God, this is going to be a cluster fuck."

"If it snows tonight, we lose the roads." I grunted, opening a Tucher for myself and taking a pull off of it. "It was sunny today and the snow looks pretty wet."

"Shit." Bomber grunted, setting down his own beer and walking over to the window. He opened the curtains and looked outside. "Icicles look soft."

"You guys wanna help me move out of Titty Territory?" Nagle asked, polishing off the beer. Both of us nodded.

"What about chow?" Bomber asked, closing the curtains.

"MRE's." She shrugged.

"Is he stupid?" Bomber asked. I just sat and watched.

"He said something about A-rats, but I don't know how he plans on heating them." Nagle told us, and I tossed her another beer. I couldn't believe he hadn't looked under the beds. We'd stashed over eight cases of beer under there. She cracked it open and tossed the cap into the trash can. "I saw Cock Sucking Kebble coming out of the supply room with the room logs."

I groaned at that. One thing the supply sergeants always seemed anal retentive about was making us tell them the serial numbers of anything expensive. TV's, stereos, VCR's, stuff like that. It was supposed to be in case of theft, but I doubted that was what our wonderful shiner was planning.

"Fuck, how much do you want to bet he's going to take my computers?" I bitched. "What the fuck is he thinking?"

"He wants to keep a repeat of last year from happening." Nagle shrugged.

"That was a goddamn psycho." Bomber growled, stomping over and sitting on his bed. He finished his beer and grabbed another one. "It's not going to happen again." Bomber kicked the dresser again. "Goddamn it, he can't do this shit to all of us. This is bullshit!"

"He doesn't think he'll be here." I grinned. "He doesn't know what's going to happen in a few hours."

"We'll lose the roads before eighteen hundred." Bomber agreed.

"Finish your beers, I need to finish moving." Nagle told us, polishing hers off in one long drink. We finished our beers, setting them on top of one of the dressers.

"Bastard confiscated my vibrators." Nagle bitched as we headed to the door.

When we went to step out, Hendricks stepped forward, putting his arm in front of Bomber and me. "Sorry, guys, you two can't leave your room."

"You gonna help me move?" Nagle asked, stopping and putting her hands on her hips.

"No, but they can't leave." He insisted.

"I'm gonna remember you." Bomber told him, and the two of us went back to our room.

I drug the chair over to the window and opened the curtain. The icicles had that weird look they got when it was sunny enough to melt ice, but snow was still pounding hard against the window.

"Think we'll lose power this year?" John broke into my dark thoughts of cold and bloodshed.

"Depends. We didn't 'lose' it last year, that fucking psycho cut the power lines." I told him. "Besides, they installed the generators and the fuel tanks while we were gone."

"It's going to be a long winter." Bomber said.

"Amen, brother." I answered, still looking out the window.

We'd be cut off before dark.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Day: Five

Nagle reached forward and hit the C key on the keyboard of my computer. We waited a minute, and then she smiled, leaning back and taking a drink out of her beer. I watched, hoping she'd hurry the hell up, when her eyes suddenly widened. She leaned forward, tapped the F1 key on the side of the computer, then typed rapidly.

LAST OF THE MOHICANS

The Commodore 64 obediently turned the letters one at a time while the TV speakers blared the static that was supposed to pass for applause. Bomber and I reached forward and picked up two of the three shot glasses and snapped down the Ausbach, racing to tap our glasses back down. I beat him by split second, and he glared at me.

"This game sucks." Bomber said, reaching out and grabbing the third one and pulling it down. Nagle smiled as she refilled all three. All three of us were in boots, BDU bottoms, and brown T-shirts. Our BDU tops were laying on Bomber's bed. We weren't supposed to be drinking, but fuck it. What was he going to do, bend our dogtags and send us to Germany to live on a fucking mountain?

"Yeah, well go down and tell the LT to give us back the rest of my shit." I grouched at him. He glared at me for a moment while the wheel spun on the screen. "That's what I thought." I nodded at the screen. "Your turn."

He stared at the screen for a moment, then hit F1 and typed in "I HATE THIS GODDAMN PLACE" into the prompt.

Cue the letters turning and the applause, with "WORLD WAR TWO" appearing on the screen. Nagle and I each tossed down a shot, and I grabbed the third one before she could and pulled it down.

"Goddamn, Ant, he's right." Nagle said, laughing and wiping her mouth. "How much did you pay for this game at the PX?"

"Nothing. I copied it from a dude in another unit." I answered. I reached out and flipped the switch on the side, sighing and leaning back in the chair.

"You got ripped off." Nagle laughed.

"Think he's still flipping his shit?" Bomber asked, picking up the box of 5 1/4" floppies and thumbing through them.

"I don't know. Apparently they had to hold Hendricks back when they took his stereo after breakfast." I told them.

"What the fuck for?" Nagle asked. She turned and looked at our room. "Seriously, why is he taking all our shit?"

"Took Hendricks stereo for playing it too loud. Claimed there were complaints about his music." I told her.

"Fuck. Take TV's and VCR's if you have the volume too high. Take computers for security risks. Take stereos for playing music too loud." Bomber said, pulling out a floppy marked "SUSPENDED" and waving it at me. "This any good?"

"Yeah, it's like Zork. Try the Impossible setting. You'll like it." I told him. His eyes brightened at the mention of his favorite game.

I nursed my beer while John flipped back on the computer, which saved because we'd convinced the LT that the Vic-20 in my wall locker was nothing more than a fancy cartridge game system and not really a computer by plugging in Pirate Island, one of the text game cartridges, before flipping it on and telling him that the C-64 was just the next step up. It was a suck game, but hey, it let me keep the computers, and it wasn't like I didn't have a million fucking disks for them. The Amiga and the IBM were long fucking gone though. Bastard.

After about five turns, John turned to me while Nagle laughed and pointed at the screen.

"Nice going, John. You suck at that game." I told him. "Everyone died. You're supposed to save them, dumbass."

"You're a dick." John told me, starting the game over.

"You'll need the map and the counters." I told him, pulling open the desk drawer and digging them out.

After about 10 minutes, he was lost in the effort of trying to save people and cursing as he tried to figure out what the robots were fucking saying. Nagle was listening to her Walkman and watching, and I got bored pretty quick. I reached over and grabbed a copy of the AD&D Player's Handbook off the desk where we'd tossed it the night before and started thumbing through it.

A beer bottle cap bounced off my chest and dropped into my lap. I looked up, and Nagle had her T-shirt pulled up and no bra. She wiggled her tits at me and raised her eyebrows. I jerked my head at the bathroom and she nodded.

"Hey, John, we're gonna hit the showers." I told him, standing up. She jumped up and ran over by the door to the hallway and the door to the bathroom, stripping her shirt off and bouncing up and down.

"Shhh." He told me, waving one hand at me and studying the TV screen closely. Patting his shoulder to let him know I was going, I walked toward her, pulling off my shirt, and she vanished into the bathroom with a laugh. I hurried toward the bathroom, undoing my belt real fast. I reached the door, my eyes on her naked torso and her large breasts. She smiled at me and reached forward.

And slammed the door then locked me out of the bathroom.

John didn't even look up as I dropped back into my chair, grabbing the book again. We sat in silence while she showered, Bomber mumbling to himself as he tried to figure out how exactly each robot worked and swearing under his breath at the one that spouted poetry. When she came back out, Bomber had a tablet of paper and a pencil and was jotting notes, staring at the screen, and I had my notebook out and was taking notes for an idea I'd had while John and I had to listen to her masturbate loudly in the shower. Ruffling our hair as she passed, Nagle walked to the fridge to grab another beer.

She'd put on her clothes in the bathroom.

"Gonna restart. Better score." He mumbled, and I nodded, still thumbing through the book. Nalge put her Walkman back on and laid on the bottom bunk of the bunkbeds, laying against her pillows and staring at the drawers above her and sipping on her beer.

Outside the wind howled and my ears popped. I looked up to see Bomber looking at me, and I could hear Nagle sitting up.

"Storm." Bomber said, and I nodded, getting up and walking over to the window. I pulled open the curtains and saw one of those surreal sights that were so common up where we lived. You could see the slate gray clouds lowering, watching them come at you, and up the mountain I could see a solid wall of white devouring everything in front of it.

"Oh, shit." Nagle said.

"So much for the roads getting cleared." Bomber told me. He'd stepped up right behind me.

We watched as the wave of white swept over the motorpool, and then crashed against the window, and almost solid wall of big fat snowflakes covering the window almost instantly.

"Think he's out there?" Bomber asked quietly, reaching forward to touch his fingers against the glass.

My shoulder throbbed, a cold spike driving deep into the joint.

"It's snowing." Nagle answered softly, and took another drink off her beer.

"And he knows we're separated." I said. "Today's Friday. That means nobody will expect to hear from us till Monday."

"Blizzard." Bomber breathed. There wasn't really anything else to say.

shit...

"Wanna play D&D?" Nagle asked, pulling off her headphones. I could hear Pink Floyd faintly from her headphones.

"Why not. Might as well pass the time till they do bed check." Bomber said, turning around and walking back to the computer. "Let me save my game and hook back up the Vic."

I grabbed the map and flipped it out on the floor why Nagle grabbed the box of figures, then we spent the time rolling dice and arguing over the rules while we nursed the few beers we rationed ourselves. Beer was running low, but we had plenty of hard alcohol.

Outside the wind was howling, and several times our ears popped as the pressure changed suddenly. At 1645 we took turns swishing Listerine and went to head out the door.

PFC Oakes stood outside the door, with some asshole I didn't really know but recognized. She had a nasty smile on her face, and an M-16A1 in her hands.

"Get back in the room." She said, lifting the rifle and pointing it at my face.

"The CO said you guys aren't allowed to leave your room." The other guy said.

"You got about two seconds..." I warned her.

"Or fucking what?" She asked me, taking a half step forward and bringing it up to her shoulder. She laid her face against the stock, looking at me through the sight.

"Or I'll fucking feed it to you." I told her, stepping forward so it was against my throat. "What now, bitch?"

She stared at me for a long moment, then stepped back. "The LT's gonna fix your ass."

"Whatever." I told her, stepping back into my room. "One of these days you're going to point a weapon at me and I'm going to kill you."

When she opened her mouth to reply I slammed the door and locked it.

"What the fuck is going on?" Nagle asked.

"Who fucking cares." I snarled, stomping back to sit down. "Fuck it, let's play."

Nagle and John nodded, and we went back to playing D&D.

The banging of the door opening wasn't a huge surprise, my alarm clock said it was 9:00 PM, twenty-one hundred hours, time for "check in" to use the LT's phrase. We'd already put the gaming stuff away and hidden the alcohol again. He'd smell it, but so far he'd contented himself with just searching our wall lockers. We jumped off our beds and stood at the end of the beds at parade rest, Nagle standing in front of the bunk beds.

Dumbass...

In strode our Lord and Master, the King of the Mountain, the Tyrant of the Rock, 1LT Reginald Gregors, ROTC graduate, class of 1988. I was pretty sure that some jackass in 1st Cav was laughing his ass off every time he thought about how he dumped this goddamn moron on us. I was pretty sure they'd offered him a waiver for promotion if he agreed to take the slot here and from what I'd seen of the asshole, he struck me as the type that would have jumped on the waiver like a hooker onto a cock wrapped with $50 bills.

He stopped in the middle of the room, looking around, then checked the room for dust, kicked at the laundry bags near the floor and hefted mine, staring at all of us the whole time. His uniform was starting to show a bit of wear from being the only one he had, but his rank was gleaming.

The radiator groaned and rumbled, and he broke off from staring at Bomber and fingering his rank to stare at the heater for a long moment. I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure out a way to blame this on us.

"Enjoying your vacation, soldiers?" He suddenly asked, breaking the silence and turning away from the radiator.

"Yes, sir." We chorused. We'd learned. Only answer yes or no, that's all he wanted, anything else he broke in and mocked you.

He stopped in front of me and leaned forward until he nose was almost touching mine. "I read your files. I don't trust the three of you." His voice was low, soft, and deadly. "I think that you're KGB plants, and that the Soviets replaced three soldiers they killed with you three fuckups. Do you hate America, Corporal Ant?"

"No, sir." I answered.

"No, sir." He mocked, twisting his voice into a high pitched whine. "I've looked at the pictures and read the files extensively and I don't understand why people seem to think you are who you are pretending to be."

He moved over to Nagle, stopping in front of her and reaching up a finger to trace it down the scar on the side of her face. "For example, the soldier in the pictures contained in the PRP file of one Nancy Nagle has no facial scars. Where did you get that scar, comrade? Georgia?"

He turned back to me, and I could hear Nancy breathing through gritted teeth. He licked his middle and index finger before he reached his hand up and pressed his fingers against the lenses of my glasses, rubbing the fingers on my lenses.

"Corporal Ant didn't wear glasses, comrade." He told me, smiling. He turned away from me and I had to restrain an urge to wrap my left arm around his neck, grab my left wrist, and rotate my arm to the left. Hard.

He stopped in front of Bomber and smiled at him. "You remember the Alamo, comrade?"

"Yes, sir." Bomber answered, and I could see his knuckles whitening.

"Learned all about that Alamo in those Texas schools, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who was in command of the Alamo?" Gregors asked.

"James Bowie and William B. Travis, sir." John answered.

"Who was in command of the Mexican forces?"

"Santa Anna, sir."

"Over five hundred Mexicans were killed, weren't there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Name them." Gregors demanded. There was silence for a long moment, the LT smiling at Bomber and reaching up to rub his silver rank pin. "That's what I thought." Gregors hissed, turning away and walking toward the short hallway that led to the door. He stopped, did a perfect about face, and stared at us.

"You may have fooled everyone else, but you don't fool me." His eyes swept over us. "From here on out, you will not attend any formations as I previously instructed and you will not leave this room under any circumstances, I don't want you contaminating my men or reporting what we are doing to your masters in Moscow."

With those words, he grabbed up the Vic-20, swept out of the room and locked the door behind him.

Nagle screamed, kicking a chair across the room, and scrubbed her cheek with one hand. Bomber was standing there shaking, and I pulled off my glasses and slowly cleaned them on my shirt.

"I'm going to fucking kill him. I swear to God, I'm going to fucking kill him." Nagle screamed. I took a step forward and grabbed her.

"For fuck's sake, shut up." I hissed. "If he hears you he'll take it as an excuse to have us fucking shot." I saw her eyes widen. "Yeah. I don't think he's all fucking there."

"Gee, Ant, you think?" Bomber asked, sitting down on his bed. "Name them. Jesus, he's just looking for shit, isn't he?"

"What are we going to do?" Nagle asked, staring at me. Her nostrils were flared and she was breathing heavy.

"We're going to behave ourselves and hope that someone higher ranking than him comes back before he has us put against a wall and shot." I answered, pulling up the chair and sitting down. "Christ, what a lashup."

"Think he'd go that far?" Bomber asked, looking up. "I mean, seriously, he can't just fucking start shooting us."

"Like anyone would notice until it was too late." Nagle said, her voice thick and hoarse. "They didn't exactly come roaring to our rescue last winter."

Bomber and I nodded.

We sat in silence for awhile, each thinking our thoughts, until the key could be heard in the lock. I jumped down off my top bunk while John and Nancy stood up, and together we walked over to where we could see down the short hallway.

Five guys stood there, all of them from the unit. One of them had a pistol in his hands, and he looked kind of sheepish about it. The others had three or four boxes of MRE's in their arms, which they set down in the entryway before backing up out the door.

The LT stepped into the doorway, smiling. Behind him, Oakes was sneering at me, her eyes hard in the reflection of the lights.

"Don't think you can go anywhere, we'll be checking on you now and then." He told us, then shut the door. The key was loud in the lock and he locked us in the room. Faintly we heard: "Then shoot the communist bastards." I looked at Bomber and shrugged. It wasn't like I couldn't just unlock it from our side.

Except PFC Oakes and her rifle on the other side.

"It's going to be a long winter." Bomber repeated.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Day: Nine

Nancy was on all fours, my legs over her back, her left arm looped back to hold onto my ankles. Bomber was sitting on the weight bench we'd reassembled sipping a beer and watching the two of us intertwined together. I grunted and pulled another five situps out before collapsing back, breathing hard. Nancy let go of my ankles and I rolled off and onto all fours, still breathing hard, and let Nancy throw her legs over me, looping my arm back and around her ankles. She started pumping out the situps while I struggled to get my breathing to slow down. The light flickered for a second and then steadied, while a crash sounded out from above us.

Bomber sipped the beer slowly, watching the two of us do PT. While I held Nagle's legs he set his beer down, laid back on the bench, and did another group of reps on the weights. He was staring at the ceiling during the reps, and except for the breathing and the clink of the weights, he was silent. Silently, Nagle switched to being on all fours and I put my feet on her back and began pushing out the pushups. A low moan sounded from the bathroom, but we ignored it. I switched from diamond pushups to widearm pushups, doing 20 of each, then got down and got on all fours so that Nagle could take her turn. Sweat was dripping off of us and onto the floor as we kept going.

The weights clinked as Bomber added another 20 pounds to the bar and went back to doing steady reps, and I glanced over to see if he needed a spotter. He shook his head, and I nodded. If he got in trouble we'd know pretty quick and could move to spot him before anything happened to him.

I'd bought the weight bench back in March, before we left, so that if we got trapped in the barracks we'd be able to hit the weights and stay in shape. Pumping iron could help pass the time, and Bomber and I had figured that we'd use the winter to see if we could keep in shape so that we didn't end up out of shape from not being able to do our normal jobs. The weights had cost me about a half month's pay, but it was worth it, having the equipment for the leg work as well as barbells to do arm curls, which was something that Nagle did more than us.

A glance at the clock showed me that we'd been at it for about an hour, meaning we would keep it up until we hit the two hour mark, something we'd all agreed on three days prior. For one thing, it kept us from just sitting there staring at one another, for another we it meant we'd burn off energy and maybe some of the aggression that was the biggest threat we'd be facing in the room. We'd finish PT, take turns showering, then eat our dinner of MRE's before kicking back and continuing our AD&D game.

When we weren't pumping iron, doing PT, eating, or playing AD&D, we'd spent a long time talking. About our pasts, about our childhoods. We had already known a lot about each other, but now we knew more about each other than anyone else. We knew how each other had lost our virginity, why we'd joined the military, knew about our school time, and even know about the darker stuff, the nastier stuff. Stuff that you normally never talk about had come out during the long discussions we'd had in the dark.

PFC Oakes liked to come in and take away our light bulb at about 2200 hours, not giving it back until the next day when she'd come in and yell at us to get up at various times. Over the last four days she'd come in at widely varying times to tell us to get up at any time between 0400 and 0800. She seemed to be reveling in her power of us more and more, and Nagle had commented after she had left that morning that Oakes was probably going to get worse before anything got better.

The rattling of our lock brought the three of us up on our feet, Bomber dropping the beer into the drawer and closing it real quick. We'd been ignored for four days, except when Oakes came on duty. She'd broken the knob off of our door lock the day before, telling us that the LT had ordered it done. It wasn't exactly a surprise. She'd come in the room, march around smiling at us, and making sure we could see that she was packing while we were just standing there. She hadn't done anything more than just walk into the room whenever she damned well pleased and strut around despite breaking our ability to unlock the door, but I had a feeling that sooner or later she'd start feeling brave. That she'd move from strutting to outright trying to smack us around.

She'd probably come in with backup to hold us or keep weapons on us.

When she came in, dressed in her BDU's with E-5 rank on them, her LBE and flak vest, I felt my heart drop. She had PFC Marks with him, a scumbag shammer that anyone with any brains hated to no end. He was a weasel, a liar, a thief, and had a face like a child molester. He was wearing E-5 and packing a rifle too.

The two of them strutted around the room. Marks stopped by the weight bench, slipping the strap of his weapon onto his shoulder real quick and lifting at the weights, his face turned red as he obviously had to put some effort into lifting the weight that Bomber had been pressing only a short time earlier.

Bomber snorted, and Marks turned to face Bomber, his face turning red. Two steps and Marks backhanded Bomber across the face. Bomber looked down at the other soldier, ignoring the blood leaking from his lower lip, and stared at the shorter man. The corner of Bomber's mouth twitched but he kept a straight face. I knew that look, it was the look he normally gave someone he'd left laying on the ground bleeding.

I'd reverted back to the jmax mindset and Bomber and Nagle had followed right along with me.

Oakes stopped in front of me, looking me up and down with a sneer on her face. I just stared above her head. She leaned forward and sniffed.

"You stink." She sneered.

I just stared above her head.

"You smell like an ape." She told me. "The CO wants to see the three of you. Get moving." She twitched the barrel of her rifle and we meekly followed. We'd all three agreed in the darkness of the night to hold back our more violent instincts so we didn't get anything worse than we'd gotten. The LT hadn't come back in since he'd confined us to the room, but Oakes had gleefully told us all about how the LT had told everyone that he was convinced we were Russian spies, and as soon as he had the proof he'd make sure that we were court martialed.

"Marks, start packing up those books and crap." Oakes said, her eyes watching my face. She looked a little disappointed at the fact my expression didn't change. I'd known that one was coming. "The CO said to make sure they don't have anything they shouldn't, and I don't think they really need all this crap they've got in here." She walked over and tapped the stack of AD&D books on the top of the dresser. "Take this devil worship shit out of here."

It might sound weird, but we'd made sure to hide the core 3 AD&D books and the dice. It was going to be a long winter, and playing D&D was keeping us from each other's throats.

Upstairs something crashed to the floor and a shriek floated down the hallway. Oakes jumped and I was tempted to laugh at her, but knew all it would do is bring me some pain. Oakes had been looking for payback since I'd punched her in the face outside the motorpool when we'd first come back to the unit.

We walked out into the hallway, Bomber and Nagle wearing running shoes, me in my combat boots. I didn't like running shoes, they hurt my feet, so I usually wore my combat boots, even during PT tests. Oakes twitched her weapon down the hallway, so we headed down, passed through the dividing doors, and walked down to the stairwell. Several times we heard crashing noises above us, and when we opened the door to the stairwell a shriek sounded from below us, echoing in the tight space. We moved down to the first floor CQ door and I pulled it open, a second shriek sounding from above us.

The rest of Rear-D was drawn up in the CQ area and were facing the CQ counter and the clocks on the far wall, the LT standing in front of everyone in his Class-A's. He was glaring at everyone, and when Oakes marched the three of us to the formation, he took a quick headcount.

"Did you leave Sergeant Marks upstairs to clear their room of non-essential material?" He asked Oakes.

"Yes, sir." She said. "He's going to remove all that crap they have in there." She waited for a moment, "They set up a weight bench, should I have that removed?"

"Did they steal it from the rec room?" The LT flushed. "I gave orders that the rec rooms were off limits without permission."

"No, sir, I saw them setting it up the day you confined them, it was in a box behind one of the dressers." Oakes actually told the truth.

"Hmph, then they can keep it." The LT made a moue and ran his eyes over the formation before turning back to SGT-Tee with an expression on his face like he had to piss. "Sergeant Terrance, what is the head count again?"

"Private Glouse is still missing." Tee said, "Sir, I really doubt..."

"Well I don't." The LT said, waving one hand dismissively as he turned to us, where we'd been marched up in front of the Rear-D. He turned and faced the three of us, looking us up and down in our PT sweats.

"So what did you do with him?" He asked.

"Do with who, sir?" Bomber asked, staring over the LT's head.

"Private Glouse." The LT waved his hand in the vague direction of the rooms. "He didn't show up to formation and he's not answering knocks at his door."

"Sir, I doubt any of these soldiers know what happened to Private Glouse, they've been confined to their room under guard." Sergeant Tee said. "And there's no reason why we can't just use the master key to check on the Private."

"My soldiers are entitled to a right to privacy, Sergeant." The LT said, reaching up with his left hand to his shoulder to rub his rank between his thumb and index/middle finger. "Private Glouse is a good soldier that I'm proud to have serve under me. And your continued defense of these three is beginning to make me suspect that you might not be as reliable as I originally believed."

I glanced at Sergeant Tee, noticing the expression on his face. I'd known Tee about 2 years, and he might as well have been screaming at the top of his lungs that something was wrong. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that there was an odd division in the people left back. A few people seemed to be promoted recently, and about half of the Rear-D seemed to have a strange smug aura around them.

He let go of his rank and turned back to the three of us. "So, comrades, what have you done with Private Glouse?"

"Sir, we've been confined to our room, none of us left the room." Nagle answered.

The LT sniffed at us, his expression souring. "Why do you three stink so bad? When was the last time you showered?"

"Sir, we all showered this morning." Bomber said.

"They were lifting weights." Oakes put in, her tone making it sound like she'd caught us doing something illegal.

"Where did you get a weight set?" The LT asked. It was like he'd forgotten that Oakes had told him about it already.

"I bought it at the PX for the winter." I told him.

"Why?" He asked me. I prayed Bomber would keep his smart mouth shut, and for once, my prayers were answered when he stayed silent.

"To stay in shape." The truth shouldn't hurt.

"What did you do with Private Glouse?" He asked me suddenly as if to surprise me, stepping in front of me and leaning forward again.

"Sir, I haven't left the room." I answered, staring above him.

"I haven't left the room." He mocked me, leaning back. He dug in the pocket of his Class-A pants and pulled out a ring of keys. "Sergeant Terrance, we'll check Private Glouse's room." He glared at me. "You better hope that you're telling the truth." He motioned at Oakes, "Bring them along."

We walked down the hallway, and upstairs I heard someone run down the hallway, boots pounding from ahead of us and back toward the platoon areas.

We moved down through Titty Territory, Sergeant Tee leading, the LT right after, the three of us following, and Oakes following. I heard bootsteps behind us, but wasn't sure who all had followed. When we pushed through the doors separating the two halves of the hallway, I heard something banging in the laundry room.

"What the hell is that?" The LT snarled, stopping and pushing open the laundry room door. Cold air blew into the hallway from the darkness beyond, and when he reached forward and flipped on the light we could see the washers and dryers beyond. The lids were up on the washers, the dryer doors hanging open.

And the windows at the far end open, allowing snow to fall onto the counters and onto the floor in a soft billow. There was nothing beyond the window but solid snow, which meant that there was at least 15, maybe 20 feet of snow on the ground on the back side of the barracks.

I heard Nagle suck in her breath through her teeth, John growl slightly, and knew I went stiff.

Someone let the winter in...

The LT stared for a moment, then turned to Sergeant Tee. "Detail someone to clean that snow up."

"Yes, sir." Sergeant Tee answered as the LT shut the door.

We headed down the hallway to one of the rooms, the LT banging on the door and calling out for Private Grouse. After a few moments of hammering on the door the LT used a key to open the door. He and Sergeant Tee walked in, the LT calling out to Private Grouse.

"I've got a bad feeling." Bomber whispered.

"Shut up." Oakes snarled, and I heard Bomber grunt as something struck him.

I turned around, and Oakes was just stepping back from Bomber, who was standing stock still, his face reddening. Oakes turned toward me, lifting her rifle, smiling at me with a cocky look on her face.

"Jump, go ahead." She told me, and I thought for a second about feeding that fucking rifle to her. Fear flashed on her face as she realized what I was considering doing, and her rifle started to come up as I tensed.

The LT came back out just then, reaching out and grabbing my arm, pulling me toward him and into the room.

"I want to know what you did to Private Grouse." He said, pulling me into the room, down the short hallway, and into the main part of the room. He pointed at the windows as he finished. "I know how you got in here, I want to know what you did with him."

The windows were broken, and snow had fallen into the room. Ice covered the wall, frost coated almost every surface, and clots of frozen mud were in the middle of the floor. The bedding were off the bed, laying on the floor, in a lonely strip of green and white that pointed from the bed to the broken windows. The glass was hidden by the snow that had fallen from the window, and the room was cold, our breath pluming out in front of us. The snow was over the window, not a trace of light coming from above.

There was a crash from above us as something fell to the floor.

"Where is he?" The LT asked me again, yanking at me again.

My shoulder suddenly felt as if something freezing cold had slid through the flesh and into the joint.

"Answer me." He yelled, letting go of me and pointing at the snow that had tumbled into the room. "Admit it, you broke into his room from outside, now what did you do with him?"

"Sir, I've been in my room the whole time." I told him.

He stared at me for a long time, his left hand moving up to rub his rank, then grabbed me by the front of my shirt, pulling me forward until we were standing nose to nose. "I know you did this, took one of my troops who understood how things need to be run in these barracks, and when I can prove it, you're gonna burn, understand?"

I just stared at him.

"Think you're tough, Ant?" He sneered at me. "Been through some special KGB training or some shit that makes you think you're tough?"

I didn't bother answering him. I'd heard that tone before from other people. He looked over my shoulder and squinted for a moment, obviously thinking hard, going back to rubbing his rank. Suddenly his eyes opened and he stepped back, smiling.

"No, you aren't KGB, Ant, and neither are you, Bomber." He said, his voice soft and deadly. I turned to watch as he moved past me to stand in front of Nagle. "No, she's KGB, you two are Spetsnaz, aren't you? You're her thugs, in case someone figures out who the three of you really are, aren't you."

We just stayed silent. Nothing we could say would matter. Nothing we could say.

"Sergeant Oakes, take them back to their room, put them under guard. No contact with anyone else unless I or Sergeant Terrance tell you personally." He thought for a second. "I want you to select four people that you feel we can trust, two men on the door at all times, and check on them every two hours or if you hear anything suspicious."

"Yes, sir. At once, sir." Oakes said from behind us.

"Take them back." The LT said, turning around and looking at the window. "I'll figure out what happened here."

"Let's go." Oakes said from behind us.

Oakes made a big show of taking the weapon off of safe when I turned around, smiling broadly. We headed toward the door, and I noticed that Oakes liked poking us with the barrel as she had us move forward.

"And Sergeant?" The LT said from behind us.

"Yes, sir?" Oakes poked me in the back with the muzzle of the rifle.

"If they give any trouble, feel free to use force to ensure their compliance." He said, almost distractedly. I knew he was staring at the snow that had pushed in through the open window, trying to figure out what had happened.

Above us there was a muffled, wordless shout followed by a crashing noise.

On the way up the stairs to third floor Oakes slammed the butt of her rifle against my back, the sling bracket thudding against the muscle over my ribs and I just ignored it. Despite what she probably thought, I'd been hit harder in bar brawls. It was more along the lines of a light tap than a really hard blow, and I doubted that I'd even have a bruise to show for it. I just kept moving, following Bomber and Nagle down the hallway, through the double doors, and stopping in front of our room. Kebble, now sporting new looking flat black sergeant rank on her collar, was supervising three other troops taking boxes out of our room. Oakes ordered us into our room, and we went in and sat down on the chairs, watching as they finished taking the last few things out of our wall lockers.

"Take their civvies too." Oakes said, looking at us and smiling. "Just leave their uniforms, take their TA-50 too, they won't be needing it." She walked up and stood in front of me. "That piss you off, Ant?" She asked, I just looked down at her, keeping silent. "Aw, you don't like it when someone takes away your stuff?" She walked over to my desk and picked up the crystal Porsche 911 that Nagle had gotten me for my birthday. "Oops." She said, and dropped it on the floor, putting her hand over her mouth in mock shock as it hit the floor and shattered.

"You should take better care of your stuff." Oakes laughed, picking up a stein I'd stolen during a beer fest. She smiled and dropped it on the floor, the handle breaking off. Above us there was the crashing of boots on the floor and another wordless shout.

"What the fuck is that?" She asked suddenly, looking up. "It's been going on for a week, what's making that noise?"

I smiled, nice and slow, and looked down at her. "Death, 'cruit, that's what it is."

"What the fuck does that mean? Who's doing that?" She asked. She stepped back from me, then looked at the three of us. "What are the three of you smiling at?"

"Do whatever you want, you cum breathed whore, it's already started." Nagle sneered. "You can't even run."

I love you, Ant! echoing down the stairwell...

"First winter is always the funnest." Bomber told her, sounding like he was about to start laughing. "One down, pretty soon a few more of you are going to vanish."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Oakes stepped forward, her face reddening. The privates that were putting the last of my stuff off of my shelves, desk, and dresser into boxes were staring.

"Then it's going to get colder in here." Bomber finished.

"You're gonna love it." I added.

"What the fuck are they talking about?" One of the privates added.

"Nothing, they're just talking shit. Finish up." She told them, then turned back and looked back up at me. She took two steps back, staring at us and smiling, fingering the front handgrip of her rifle as we stared back at her silently. The privates finished loading up our stuff in boxes, and when one of them went to sweep up the broken crystal on the floor, Oakes told them to leave it.

On her way out, she grabbed the broom with a nasty smile.

"Bitch." Nagle said softly when the door shut and locked. "Probably got that promotion sucking that shiner's cock." Bomber chuckled without much humor.

"I think it's a little uglier than that." I said, digging out an old towel that was stained with boot polish. "I think that she's one of the LT's cadre and he's forgotten he's not really in charge of this unit." I tossed over my shoulder as I went in and got the towel damp. When I walked back into the room and began carefully cleaning up the shattered crystal Bomber was standing at the window, the curtain open, and staring out at the snow on the window. Nagle was sitting on the end of Bomber's bed, untying her tennis shoes.

"This is bad." Bomber mused, staring at the snow blowing on the glass. "He's crazier than a shithouse rat."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

We stayed silent, taking turns going in and taking a shower, until all three of us were done and sat eating our MRE's. We'd been in the field often enough and long enough to know better than to dig through the MRE's and grab out only what we wanted. We'd each chosen a box and were slowly working our way through it. The grape jelly was important, or you ran the risk of getting constipated. That was a big enough risk when eating them as it was, but you had to eat everything, since they balanced well enough, and then plenty of water would help even more.

"You know that we're all in trouble." Nancy broke the silence.

"Yeah. We'll be lucky if he doesn't fucking shoot us." Bomber answered. I just shrugged.

"That's not what I mean." Nancy tossed her empty dehydrated pork patty wrapped into the garbage and looked at us. "It's started, he's already going after victims."

"Don't talk like that." Bomber said. "Let's not bring him into it."

"Too late. You know as well as I do what happened to Grouse." Nancy answered. There was a crash from upstairs, and Nagle jerked her head up, "It's already starting, and now we've got someone missing. How long do you think it's going to be before he takes out his next victim?"

"As soon as he gets hungry again." I answered, breaking my crackers into quarters and then tearing open the foil.

"Why break into rooms now? Why not when the snow first started? All he did was just lurk around the barracks scaring people." Nagle asked, tossing away the last part of her MRE and popping the gum into her mouth. "Why wait to physically break into the barracks and take someone until last night?" I shrugged.

"The blizzard." Bomber answered. "It can't be the snow, it's been snowing since October off and on, so it's gotta be the blizzard."

"You might be right." Nagle said, getting up and walking up to look out the window.

"No." I said, finished with smearing cheese all over my crackers and making a cheese and cracker sandwich. Both of them looked at me. "The barracks are empty, that's what did it. Winter, empty barracks, and the roads have been out for a few days." I took a bite and chewed on the crackers as they chewed on the idea. I swallowed, took a swig of the Koolaid I'd mixed in the canteen cup from the mess kit they'd been nice enough to leave each of us with. "Nobody is going to get here in time, and it's going to get bloody before anyone comes to rescue us."

"They came and rescued us last time." Bomber said.

"Except last time we didn't have an officer and his little cabal answering the phones and giving all the right answers to anyone who might come up here." I told them. Bomber shook his head, not denying what I had said, but in realization that what I was saying was the truth. "Now he is on the loose, in this abandoned barracks, and the body count is going to climb. Soon."

"What's his problem with us?" Nancy asked, spitting her gum in the garbage can and standing up. She began pacing back and forth. "For fuck's sake, we underwent the polygraph, they checked out fingerprints, almost fifty people verified who were were, why is he bringing up this Russian shit?"

"He's a fucking nut." Bomber answered.

"Remember that briefing you get when you first get here?" I asked, both of them nodded. "The whole 'Ivan is listening' and warnings about what we talk about outside the barracks, and the fact that MI has found taps on our phones a couple times. Hell, the fact that Chambers was shopping around to sell the site locations and inventory sheets last year when CID busted him."

"Which means he reads about that bullshit with the falsified paperwork, and his paranoia ramps way up and he immediately latches on to us being Russian spies." Nagle added. "Is it really paranoia when they really are watching you?" Bomber and I chuckled.

"He's probably convinced himself that he's going to get a promotion and a chest full of medals for 'busting' us." Bomber said, reaching out and tapping the window with one finger.

"So what do we do?" I asked Nagle. She sat silently for awhile.

"We just hold out until they clear the roads and hope that someone comes home from leave or one of the other officers come up to check on us." She told me.

"In the meantime, how many people are going to 'vanish' as he starts working his way through the buffet that LT has nicely laid out for him." Bomber said, pounding the bottom of a closed fist on the painted cinderblock wall. "Each person who vanishes, the LT is going to become more and more paranoid, and he's already fixated on us."

"Can we make it out of the barracks and to main post?" Nagle asked. "Your brother made the run to post in November, can you?"

I shook my head. "No way. It was just snowing, not like it was out there, and he took the War Fighter tunnels to the lower access point." I pointed out the window. "I wouldn't make it a mile in that weather, and I'd be lost in less than a hundred feet." I waved at the lockers. "Plus, they took most of our TA-50, and Oakes was pretty careful to grab our cold weather gear, I'd be dead in ten minutes."

Nagle sighed, still pacing back and forth. Bomber stood silently, still looking out the window. "You know, there is another option." He said softly.

"Let's not jump to that." Nagle answered.

"Ant and I could kill the whole of Rear-D if we went on the offensive, weapons or not." Bomber kept speaking. "We could kill everyone we needed to in a single night and have done with it."

"I'm not killing anyone. They're just scared of the LT and his cheese eating suckups." I told him. "Just forget that bullshit."

The lock interrupted us, and Nagle stopped and leaned against Bomber's dresser while Bomber himself turned away from the window, letting the curtain fall to cover the snow covered glass. The door opened and bootsteps thudded as Oakes, Kebble, and PV2 Nelson came in the room, all three of them carrying weapons. All three were sporting Sergeant rank, and Kebble was carrying a pair of pistols on her LBE instead of a rifle and sporting a nasty smirk.

Nelson and me had tangled before, he'd joined when he was in his late 20's, and he hated everyone younger and higher ranking than him. He had a nasty mouth, was frequently insolent, and I'd had problems with him several times in the few weeks we'd been back in the unit. Mainly because he'd resented me being put in charge of a couple details that we'd been assigned to pull the pre-winter inventory on the various war stocks that stuffed the unit's basements and attic.

"Get over here, bitch, the CO wants to talk to you." Oakes said, smiling.

"About what?" Nagle asked.

"He can tell you." Oakes replied, hefting her rifle. "He told us to drag you down there if we needed to."

Nagle pushed up off the dresser, spreading her feet apart and bring one hand in a half fist by her beltline and the other knife edged in front of her. Bomber took a step forward, and I jumped to my feet.

"No. Nagle, just do it." I said. Nagle looked at me, then dropped her hands.

"Fine." She said.

"What?" Kebble asked, tapping her rank.

"Yes, Sergeant." Nagle answered, her eyes flashing.

Bomber and I watched them leave, the door closing and locking.

"What do you think he wants?" I wondered aloud.

"He's going to ask us who we report to. Ask us about our supposed Russian contacts." Bomber said, and I nodded. "Probably ask us more about the shit in our files."

"Yeah." I grunted as he sat down.

We sat in silence for a long time, the only sound aside from the ticking of the clock was the various noises our barracks made in the winter. Faint screams. The thudding of boots running down the hallway outside. Crashing from above us. Shouts that carried the snap of command. Long groans like the building itself was in pain. Once in awhile we could hear the guys outside the door talking.

The key rattled in the lock, and we both looked up. Footsteps preceded Oakes, Kebble, and Nelson coming back into the room. Nelson looked serious, but Oakes and Kebble were both smiling widely. Bomber and I looked at them, then looked at each other, both of us nodding. We'd both seen the same thing.

"You. Up." Kebble said, drawing one of her pistols and aiming it at Bomber while Nelson aimed his weapon at me. Bomber looked at me as he stood up. "Don't try anything stupid, tough guy, or we'll shoot you." She smiled real wide. "Bull rider or not, a bullet in the knee will make you nice and docile."

"I'll see you, Ant." He told me, turning and looking at me.

"See you, brother." I told him.

"Aw, ain't you two cute. You want a minute to kiss each other goodbye?" Nelson asked, the two women laughed.

He looked at the three the LT sent to gather us. "I'm going to remember you."

They walked out with my best friend, and the room was empty, smaller, without the two most important people in my life there.

The snow whispered against the window. The clock kept ticking. Above me boots thudded. A low moan sounded from the bathroom.

Finally the door opened, and bootsteps marched into my room. I took off my glasses and left them on the 3-drawer chest next to my clock.

"You. Up." Oakes told me, pointing her weapon at me. She smiled. "The CO wants to have a little talk with you before you join your friends."

All three of them laughed at that as I stood up.

"Watch this one, he likes to fight." Kebble said, and I didn't bother looking at her.

"Let's go, Ant." Nelson told me.

I didn't say a word, just stood up and let them take me to where the LT was waiting. I didn't bother talking, there was nothing to say.

All three had blood on their cuffs, spatters on their BDU blouses, and Oakes had a smear of blood on one cheek.

Bomber's blood. Nagle's blood.

And soon, my blood.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Day: Twelve

The tiny little chrome bead snapped off the chain with a click and I swept it into the little hole on the bedframe. The beds in the barracks were designed to be made into bunk beds by dropping pegs into the holes on the head and foot boards, then stacking the next bed. Normally Bomber and I used them to hang things from the bed, but this time we were using the one on my bed to keep track of the days by dropping a metal bead taken from my long dogtag chain each morning.

"And a metal bead in a bunk bed." Nagle said softly, imitating the Christmas carol.

"Six more days till Christmas." Bomber added. "Provided we live that long."

"I want Santa to bring me 10 minutes with Oakes in the laundry room." Nagle snarled, flexing her fingers. The scar on her face deepened in color. It'd become a sure gauge of her real temper over the last year, and it gave her a look I'd found more and more attractive.

"I'll take three minutes with the LT." Bomber chipped in. "Break him like a fucking maverick."

I nodded, sitting down on the weight bench and staring at my hands. Bomber was standing at the window, staring out at the snow. Nagle was sitting in the chair by the desk. We were wearing our PT uniforms, one of the guys guarding us had agreed to wash our uniforms for us, and they were in the laundry room. Logan seemed like too good of a guy to be one of the LT's minions, and his lack of sudden promotion had me thinking I was probably right.

"What do you want for Christmas, Ant?" Bomber asked me after a few moments of silence.

"The Rangers to show up again." I answered, laying back. "Before it gets much worse."

"Much worse? We had the shit beaten out of us, how can it get much worse?" Nagle snarled.

"Him." Bomber answered, tapping the glass. "It's only a matter of time now."

The building punctuated what Bomber said with a low groan that I could feel under my feet. There were a few pops, as loud as nearby pistol shots, above us.

"Cheap ass contractors." Bomber said.

"Lowest bidder, baby. Trucks by Tonka rifles by Mattel." Nagle added. I just snorted. "Ant, come here, I want to see your front teeth."

I sighed theatrically and got up, moving over to kneel in front of her. She pulled my lower lip down and shook her head. "They hurt too bad?"

"No." I told her, running my tongue over my broken teeth when she let my lip go. She pulled me close against her chest, hugging me tightly, then pushed me away and waved at the weight bench. I moved over to sit back down on the weight bench.

"You still want to do this the easy way?" Bomber asked. "I'm not too willing to take another ass kicking while some paranoid fucking nutcase screams questions at me."

"That bitch Oakes touches my face again, and I'll tear her tits off, Ant, I'm not kidding." Nagle added.

"We open that door, there isn't any going back." I said. "We start spilling blood, and Tandy will go into a fucking frenzy again. He goes into a frenzy, things will get really bad really fast."

"It's already really bad, Ant." Bomber said, slamming the bottom of his fist against the baby-shit yellow painted cinderblock. "It's fucking bad for us." He turned from the window and pointed at his nose and the heavy bruising under both eyes. "Why should we be the only poor bastards who it gets bad for?"

I sat silently for a long time, staring at the floor.

"Answer me, goddamn it." Bomber said, taking two steps forward.

"Private Taggart is pregnant." I said. I looked up into his face. "You want that on your soul, brother?"

Bomber turned away from me, going back to looking out the window. "Shit."

"Why is she still back? I thought we sent the preggo's TDY." Nagle added.

"Didn't find out until the day before that shiner bastard ended up in charge, so take a fucking guess what happened." I tossed out. "She was supposed to be shifted to Darmstadt."

"Any idea which side she's on?" Bomber asked.

"John, she's 17, what do you think she's doing?" Nagle said softly. "She doesn't belong here, she thought she was joining the Army, not being sent to Hell. She's 17, chained up in Hell's Icebox, pregnant, and has a madman in charge. What would you do?"

"I'd just try to get through." Bomber admitted. "All right, I see your point, Ant. Still, think he'd really go after a pregnant woman?"

"How the fuck should I know?" I asked. "It's not like we're pen pals." Bomber snorted in amusement. "What do I do, write 'Dear Tandy, please don't kill and eat the pregnant girl. Thanks, Ant. PS: Get a manicure.'?" John and Nancy both laughed.

"What do you think he is?" Nancy asked, stretching. I got distracted watching her boobs lift up. She didn't have on a bra, and her nipples stood out.

"Revenant?" Bomber suggested.

"Who knows?" I shrugged. "All we know is that he vanished in the old barracks, vanished while being transferred back to the States, either the coffin got to the States empty or he disappeared from the morgue here depending on who you believe, and he shows up when it gets cold."

"I hate this fucking place." Bomber said. "Hey, hand me the bar, will you?"

I took the weights off the ends and then handed it to him. He opened the window, the snow and wind blowing in, and held on the end to lower the bar, leaning way out the window. My stomach clenched, and my hands twitched to pull him back in before long white arms snatched him out the window. He lowered it as far as he could then pulled it back up. There was snow on the last two feet.

"Shit, it's only about five, maybe six feet down there." He said. "This snow keeps up or gets worse, and it's going to be over our windows."

All of us turned to look at the door when someone started screaming. Not out in the hallway, but further away. We could barely hear it, but it was unmistakable. Someone was screaming in horror and agony.

"Boots on, now." Nagle said, grabbing hers. I turned and grabbed mine from beside the bed, pulling them on. Bomber moved over and pulled his own, and the zzzziiiip of us pulling the speed laces through was in unison.

We moved up to the doorway, standing there silently. The screaming was still going on. It was too loud to be in a room, but too faint to be in the hallway.

The three of us were really familiar with the way screams carried in the building.

We heard pounding bootsteps heading away from us, and I leaned my head against the wall, wondering what I was going to hear next. Nagle was leaning her ear against the door, listening closely.

The screaming stopped.

"Wait for it..." Bomber murmured.

Another voice screamed, louder, and someone fired a rifle on full auto. The scream changed, becoming higher pitched, and the weapon fire stopped. I knew by how long it took it wasn't because they'd let off the trigger, but because the magazine had run dry.

"Rob! Rob!" A voice outside our door. "Fuck, Rob!"

An icicle slid through my skin and lodged in my shoulder joint.

"Hit the light." I whispered, crouching down. Nagle flipped the switch, dropping us into darkness. I swore. "On, turn them on." I whispered urgently. "For fuck's sake, turn it..." Nancy hit the switch, turning it back on.

"What?" Bomber asked quietly.

"No light under the door. The lights are off in the hallway." I answered, keeping my voice low.

"Who's there? Who is that?" The voice on the other side of the door asked. "Identify yourself. I'm armed."

"It won't help." Nancy whispered.

Slow, plodding footsteps we could hear, and the building felt like it was holding it's breath.

"Halt! I'm not kidding you! Don't fucking..." Our guard said, his voice rising.

"Get back from the door, move move move." Nagle said, and we all scrambled into the main room. "Get down." We all laid on the floor, listening, straining to hear.

There was a single shot.

"Don't come any closer." Our guard shouted.

A low, liquid chuckle answered him.

"RUN YOU IDIOT!" Nagle shouted.

"Stay back! I'll shoot!"

I looked at Bomber. He had his eyes squeezed shut. I looked at Nagle, and her eyes met mine, wild and terrified eyes.

There was another shot.

Another cold, liquid chuckle that sounded almost like a cough.

My brother had gotten pneumonia in November, and it took him almost two weeks before he was released from Darmstadt. When he'd coughed, it had been a thick, liquid thing.

The laugh sounded more like that.

"Who are you?" The guard's voice trembled.

Another shot.

"RUN!" We all shouted at the same time.

Something clattered, and we could hear him running away.

"Whew." Nagle breathed. "I was worried he'd go down shooting and we'd take one through the door. I know they're steel, but why take the chance?"

Footsteps moved up slowly to the door, and we stood up, moving so we could see the door.

"That door opens, I'm out the window." Bomber said softly.

The handle turned, and the door shook, then the handle slowly went back to normal.

That chuckle again.

Footsteps moved away from us.

"Christ, look at the door..." Nancy breathed.

The middle had frost in the middle, slowly spreading out.

The lights flickered, dimmed, and settled into a sullen glow that did little to provide any light.

Someone else began screaming.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

The screams faded, not cut off, and silence settled over the room. Nagle shivered and rubbed her arms. We stood there silently for a long time, until we heard footsteps, slow and steady ones, thudding up the hallway. Our eyes had adjusted to the dim light thrown off by the bulb, letting us see the small entryway. The door handle turned slowly and the door seemed to flex strangely for a moment before the door handle slowly returned to where it started. There was a tapping sound at the door, a brittle sound like ice cracking.

"The floor..." Nagle hissed. I looked down and saw frost slowly spread under the edge of the door.

"Christ, he's right out there." Bomber breathed.

There was a scraping noise, like nails on a blackboard, and the door shivered in its frame.

Another liquid sounding chuckle, and footsteps slowly paced away.

"He's in the fucking barracks." Bomber said softly, one of the more unnecessary things he'd ever said.

"Knives?" Nagle asked.

"No. Knives won't do shit against him, trust me." I replied. My shoulder gave a dull throb at the memory of a chunk of ice sliding into the stab wound and a sucking sound right after it withdrew. I shuddered, and rubbed my shoulder.

"Then what?" Bomber asked.

"Eat. Two MRE's if you can handle it, and use the bathroom." I said, heading over to the box and pulling out two MRE's. Bomber and Nagle joined me, grabbing two MRE's out of their boxes and following my example by wolfing it down as quick as possible. Squeezing the peanut butter, jelly, and cheese straight out of the package. The bathroom was rank by the time we were done, but I figured it was better to be fully fed, bladder and bowels empty, than to just go into whatever we were looking at only half fed.

"Now we wait." Nagle said, sitting down on the bed. I sat down next to her, and when Bomber went to sit on the weight bench Nagle patted the bed next to her. She took both of our hands, and we sat there silently, in the dim light, waiting, watching the glow in the dark hands of my windup alarm clock.

Less than a half hour went by before we heard voices at the door. I let go of Nagle's hand and sat in the desk chair, Bomber moved over to sit on the weight bench. I watched as the handle turned after the key rattled in the lock, just waiting.

Oakes, Kebble, the LT, and Nelson stood in my doorway. The LT stared at me for a long moment, and I smiled at him, letting him see my broken front teeth.

"Where is he?" The LT asked, stomping into the dim room. "Sergeant Oakes, turn on the light." Oakes flipped the switch. The light didn't change, just a faint dim yellow. Weird. The LT grabbed me and pulled me to my feet. "Where is Sergeant Martins?"

"He's gone." I said simply. "If that was him in the stairs, with the rifle, he's just gone."

"Bullshit. You three did something to him!" Oakes yelled. "Your shitty Scooby-Doo costume might have fooled Private Logan, but we know that it was you three!" Her voice held the edge of hysteria, and I smiled at her.

"How much blood was in the stairwell?" Nagle asked. She smiled when the LT looked.

"Was it frozen?" Bomber added his smile when the LT looked at him. "It was frozen, wasn't it?"

"Grab them, take them down to the My Office." The LT snarled, letting go of me and turning around to walk out of the room. You could hear the capital letters in the way he said it.

When Oakes stepped forward and grabbed my arm I just went along with it, instead of doing what I wanted to do, which was break her fucking face in. She was pinching with her fingernails, deliberately digging them into me. Rather than actually respond to her, I just ignored her and it, staring at her like nothing was going on.

"Did you want something, Private?" I asked her. She yanked harder, and I just swayed slightly. "Yes?"

"It's Sergeant, asshole." She said. I glanced back, seeing Bomber and Nagle standing there behind me, and smiled at them.

When she pulled again I just curled my lip, then stepped forward, letting her know I was letting her tugging me toward her.

My door had deep scratches in it, through the paint, and into the metal. It was also covered with a thick layer of frost. Frost glittered on the walls, the lights in the hallway and the emergency lights were out, the lights on the other side of the doors were dim. The door to the stairwell, when we passed it, was closed and the stairwell was dark.

We took the front stairwell down to the orderly room, and when we left the stairwell the windows were dark where the snow had piled over the bottom floor. The temperature was pretty bad, our breath pluming out in front of us, but that was normal.

And it was better than the winter before.

The door to the outside, where I could clearly remember an axe-wielding maniac standing in the snow attached to a tether, was closed and completely blocked by snow. The windows were completely blocked by white, and I wondered just how deep the snow was. Skiers and tourists were probably enjoying the mountain below us, completely unaware of what was going on up here.

I briefly wondered if Tandy sometimes snacked on tourists.

We took the right, past the copy machine, and a left into the orderly room, where the Sergeant Major's office and the CO's office was. Sergeant Tee was sitting behind the Sergeant Major's desk, reading paperwork, and when we were marched in, he closed the manila folder he was reading and began to stand up.

Nelson already had the door to the CO's office open, grinning nastily, and waved us inside. The LT was standing up behind the desk, still dressed in his Class-A's, and I wondered just how bad they were starting to smell. He kept alternating between his Class-A's and a single uniform, and the uniform was starting to look pretty bad. When we came in, he was still looking out the window, not even bothering to turn around and face us.

"Take a seat in the chairs, we'll begin in a moment." He told us, tracing a finger across the glass.

I took the middle chair, Nagle on my right, Bomber on my left.

"Tie them down." The LT said, turning from the window and reaching out to pick up his Class-A gloves off the desk.

"No." I said, standing up. Bomber and Nancy followed smoothly.

"Sit down, or be put down." He smiled.

The only one not behind us was the LT, but it was pretty easy to keep track of them. Situational awareness was what it was called, and I'd always been good at it. Keeping track of your surroundings and the things in your surroundings that move, as well as estimating how they'd move.

Behind us, someone flipped the selector lever on their rifle, the click loud in the silence.

I tensed to turn around, my plan involving kicking the chair at Nelson, who was directly behind me. I'd take Kebble down with a strike to the throat, then turn and hit Oakes in one of her floating ribs twice, then finish off Nelson before moving on to the LT.

"What is going on in here?" Sergeant Tee's voice stopped me, and I heard Nagle exhale sharply.

"I'm going to question these three about the disappearance of two soldiers." The LT said, still pulling on the leather gloves as if the whole room wasn't poised at the knife's edge of violence.

"And they need to be tied up for that?" Tee wondered, coming into the office and standing in front of the desk. "So it is true that you had the three of them beaten to extract a bullshit confession out of them?"

"They're Soviet agents, we need to interrogate them to find out how many people they are working worth, to find out who is killing people in my barracks." The LT answered, clenching his fists in the leather gloves.

"Sir, nothing in the UCMJ requires these soldiers to submit to any type of interrogation outside of an MP station." Sergeant Tee snarled, stopping in front of us. "Nothing in the UCMJ give you the right to..."

"The UCMJ says what I say it says, Sergeant!" The LT suddenly bellowed, his face turning red. "Vigilance against agents of the Soviet Union is required in this unit!"

"Nagle, Ant, Bomber, return to your room." Sergeant Tee said. "The LT and I need to have a small talk."

"Stop right there." The LT snarled, "Sergeant, you don't want to try to countermand my authority."

"You do not want to get in a pissing contest with me." Sergeant Tee shot right back. "You're a pissant little Lieutenant with delusions of grandeur who can't even handle a Rear-D assignment." He glanced back at the three of us. "And I doubt that First Cavalry Division would have approved of you beating up three soldiers for some imaginary crime."

"I'm sure I'm a better judge of what goes on in First Cav than you are, Sergeant." The LT's tone was frosty.

The three of us were just staring at the exchange. You never saw an officer and an NCO going eye to eye.

"Since I've been with the Cav twice, once when you were still in High School, you're sadly mistaken." He turned slightly. "The three of you, go back to your room." He turned back to the Lieutenant. "We're going to talk about what's going on."

I turned around, smiling at Nelson, and pushed by him, deliberately shoving him with my shoulder, using my greater mass to knock him a step back. Nagle and Bomber followed me into the orderly room, and I kept an ear out.

In the stairwell, heading between the first and second floor, we heard the stairwell door open and boots thunder up the steps. We stopped on the landing and let them catch up.

Nelson, Oakes, and Kebble came up the steps, glaring at us, and stopped on the landing with us.

"The LT told us to make sure that the three of you get to your room all right." Oakes smiled. "He's going to arm everyone and put them into search parties."

"We'll find out where you're hiding them, and then your ass is grass." Nelson added.

"Whatever." I grunted, heading up the stairs. Fuck 'em.

They locked us in the room and we all three looked at each other.

"He's going to arm them." Nagle breathed.

"Fuck." I agreed.

Bomber grabbed the desk chair and drug it over to the door, wedging the chair under the handle so it couldn't turn and be used to open the door.

I had a bad feeling.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Day: Fourteen

"Open the door." The command was yelled through the steel door of the room.

"Go fuck yourself, Kebble!" I yelled back.

"Open this goddamn door, the CO wants to see you!" She yelled again.

"Fuck him too!" I yelled back. "I ain't comin' out!"

The handle jiggled, unable to turn all the way because of the top of the chair blocking it.

The room was brighter, the light bulb having gone back to normal the night before. We still had heat, we still had MRE's, and we still had water. The bruising on my face was fading pretty quick, but my teeth still ached. Nagle was standing behind me, as naked as I was, watching me and Kebble scream at each other through the door with a smile on her face.

"We'll break it in!" She warned.

"Go ahead and try! We'll be waiting!" I bellowed back.

They'd been trying to get us to unbarricade the door for 2 days, trying every couple of hours. Our uniforms were still in the laundry room, and after wearing our PT's constantly for the last couple days, we'd stripped naked, washed them in the shower, and now had them hanging from the shower curtain rod and drying. Nagle walked around naked, no body modesty at all, and Kebble had started banging on the door, interrupting our poker game. We were playing for matches and cigarettes, and I was ahead by a handful of match stick and almost a full pack of smokes.

"We should let them in." Nagle smiled. "Let Kebble see what a woman actually looks like, instead of that sorry excuse she sees in the mirror."

"I don't want her staring at my junk." Bomber tossed out from the main room.

There was some argument on the other side of the door that I didn't catch. Nagle stepped up behind me, pressing her breasts against my back, her hands going around my waist to clasp together below my belly button. She breathed softly in my ear and then licked the bottom of what had been my ear lobe before most of it was cut away due to frost bite.

"You know, you could open the door and let her see something else." She whispered into my ear, the hot breath tickling.

"Be good." I murmured, playfully slapping her hand.

"Sooner or later we're gonna kick in the door!" Kebble yelled, and we could hear her stomp off. She'd forgotten to lock it after her.

"Fuck that bitch." I snarled.

Nagle's hand dropped lower. "How about fuck this bitch?" She teased.

"That sounds like a good..." I started, just before someone knocked on the door.

"Open the door." Sergeant Tee's voice.

Nagle's hand stopped moving. "What's he doing up here?"

"Hurry up, open the door."

I pulled the chair away from the door and pulled on the handle. I opened the door, the cold air blowing across my naked body. The lights were still off in the hallway, and the light from my room flickered as the lightbulb buzzed and suddenly dimmed. The darkness was almost a palpable thing as it pushed into the dimming room.

There was nobody in the hallway.

"What the shit?" I asked.

It was risky, but I stuck my head out the door, looking first left, then right. Bomber, me, sometimes Nagle, and sometimes some others played a game. You knock on the door, stand to the side. When they look out the door, you wait till they look at you, then you punch them in the face.

I half expected a punch when I looked to either side of the door.

Toward the mid-way doors there was nothing but darkness, not even light in the glass of the double doors. To the other side there was nothing but darkness. Not even the emergency light was kicked on.

shit

"Ant, get our uniforms." Nagle whispered. "I'll stand in the door."

"No way." I answered, trying to pull back. Nagle put one hand on the small of my back and shoved hard, sending me half stumbling into the hallway.

"Go, Ant..." She hissed, but I was already moving, running as fast as I could in the darkness.

I'd walked these halls drunk so often I could navigate them concussed, black out drive drunk, or half asleep.

I slid to a stop, bumping into the double door, my bare feet skating across the thin patina of ice on the floor. I almost busted my ass, but managed to turn it into a (hopefully) suave looking slide into the laundry room, opening the door by slapping the handle and the edge of the door simultaneously.

Ice coated the ceiling, frost down the wall, and while all of the washer lids were open, three of the dryers were closed.

Bingo

I hurried to the dryer, shivering, and dug in the dryer for the laundry bag. In the moonlight streaming in through the window high up in the wall I couldn't tell who's uniforms they were, but I could tell they were uniforms, and that's all that mattered. I opened the laundry bag and started jamming everything inside. When I caught bras, I figured this was Nagle's shit. I hurried as fast as I could, feeling my feet go numb and my toes start to hurt. I'd broken my toes at various times over the last few years, so they all had stabbing pains in them as the old breaks started complaining. Halfway through the second dryer my nose felt like it was going to break off and my ears were throbbing. By the time I got done jamming everything into the laundry bags, I couldn't even feel my genitals, ears, nose, lips, toes, and my fingers were clumsy.

I yanked open the door, and the darkness of the hallway enveloped me.

"Nancy." I hissed into the darkness.

"Hurry, Ant." She hissed back, and I moved down the hallway, my bare feet slapping on the frost covered tiles.

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhnnnnt" The sound was sibilant, more like a low bubbling exhalation than anything.

"Oh, God, RUN ANT!" Nancy yelled. I could faintly see her arm waving back and forth in the dimness of the hallway, and I took off sprinting.

The double doors behind me crashed, and I heard the wire strengthened glass shatter behind me.

"Aaaaaaahnt" that exhalation again.

Cold air washed over me, making me stumble as it felt like I was frozen all the way into my core. My breath froze in my lungs, it felt like ice covered my eyeballs, and my lips felt like chunks of ice.

Darkness was next, the light vanishing, and I was stumbling, trying to keep ahead of my feet, the three laundry bags being drug on the ground. I wasn't sure exactly why it was so important to keep my hand in a fist, to hold onto the barbed wire laced across my palm.

Between one step and the next a hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed my arm, yanking me almost off my feet and out of the hallway.

I got yanked into the room, the door slamming behind me, the hand slinging me into the hallway between the entryway and the main room, wall lockers on both sides of me. I could make out Bomber standing there in my blurred vision and realized that Nancy had grabbed me as I had stumbled by and pulled me in from the hallway.

"C-c-c-old." I shivered. Bomber turned away in the dim light and then turned back holding a blanket that he wrapped around me.

There was a knock at the door.

"Open up." The voice was one I didn't recognize.

Nagle moved away from the door, pulling me deeper into the room. There was another knock at the door, but I was too busy trying to get warm again. Nagle grabbed the laundry bag's strings off the floor where I dropped them and pulled the bags after her as we moved into the main part of the room.

"Come on, man, open the door." The voice said.

Nagle dumped the bags on the bed into three different piles, picking up the BDU tops and naming who's they were. I stood there, teeth chattering, while Bomber and Nagle got dressed pretty quickly, Nagle leaving her top, bra, and T-shirt off. Nagle pulled out a uniform and underwear for me while I just stood there.

"What the hell happened out there?" Bomber asked, moving around behind me to rub my back through the blanket.

"Tandy's out there." Nagle answered for me, moving in front of me to open the blanket and then press against me. I wrapped the blanket around us, basking in the heat radiating from her body.

"Fucking great." He snarled. "A psycho officer, again, and Tandy running loose, again. Shit, at least I don't have to worry about getting my appendix popped this time." He slapped my shoulder, making the old stab wound ache. "Guess it's your turn, Ant."

"Bite me, John." I chattered. I nuzzled Nancy's hair. "Why'd you push me out the door?"

"You're a boy." She told me.

"Oh." That was all she needed to say.

"How you feeling?" She asked.

"Better." I lied. She went to pull away, and I held onto her for a moment, until she pinched me hard, so I kissed the top of her head and let her go. She poked me in the belly button as she backed away, but she was smiling at me.

"Get dressed." She told me, tossing me a pair of boxers and picking up a bra. While she got dressed I hurriedly pulled on my uniform, checking the color real quick to make sure my rank was sewn on with that uniform and not pinned on. I was good, although the nametag was getting worn. Probably about the fifth uniform I'd used it on. I was a little rough on BDU's, or to be correct, my job was a bit rough. It wasn't uncommon to catch some banding or the edge of an ammo container and tear a hole in it or tear a huge rip in it.

I grabbed my softcap off the top of the fridge, putting it on. For some reason, the simple act of putting my softcap on made me feel a metric fuckton better.

"Knives?" Bomber asked simply.

"Knives." I agreed.

Nagle and Bomber pulled the fridge away from the wall, and I climbed behind in, reaching into the space where the compressor was to find the blades I'd hidden in there. I pulled them out, handing them out, and strapped one to my boot. It wasn't tied on with the laces, but rather designed to sit on a combat boot. A metal loop that went around the heel and a clip that went into the top of the boot. Another Gerber went on my hip. Nagle put hers on her waist, clipping it to her belt, so that her BDU shirt hid it. Bomber put his at the small of his back, letting his BDU blouse fall to cover it.

The others I put in the underwear drawer that Nagle was using, hiding them under her panties and bras. It wasn't as good a place as under the fridge, but they would be easy to get to.

"Now what?" Bomber asked, leaning against the wall lockers.

"We go down to the CQ area, find out what the fuck is going on in here." I answered. "It's been too quiet lately."

"What if he is still in the hallway?" Nagle asked.

"Then we run like hell." I answered.

We walked toward the door, Nagle bumping me affectionately with her shoulder.

"Where's the rendevous point?" Bomber asked from behind me.

"Third floor stairwell, second floor landing. If that fails, meet up in the ops center on four, we'll jump." I finished, reaching for the door.

Nobody stood outside of it, in the darkness, and the hallway looked clear.

But then, it wouldn't be the first time that someplace looked clear when it wasn't.

We deliberately stayed quiet, walking down to the CQ area down the dark hallways, the frost dark and cold on the walls. A crashing noise came from above us as we pushed through the middle stairwell doors, the wire reinforced glass in the frames shattered. Our boots thudded against the tile as we made our way to the stairwell, above us boots thudded as someone ran down the hallway. Pulling open the stairwell door, cold air swirled around us and a shriek echoed from below. There was ice, not frost, on the walls and the steps had icicles hanging from them. We watched our step heading down the stairs and when we pushed open the door, the scene in front of us made us stop and stare.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Rear-D was divided in half. Almost a dozen stood around with weapons, staring at the rest of the detachment, which stood there unarmed, glaring at the ones with weapons. The LT was in all his glory, wearing his Class-A's, and Sergeant Tee was wearing his BDU's. They were standing face to face, obviously arguing, but whatever they were saying was lost in the crash of the door opening, and every eye turned to stare at us as a scream ripped down the stairwell.

We walked just outside the door, letting it slam behind us, and stared back at everyone.

"Just what do you think you're doing outside of your room?" The LT asked. His hand was rubbing his rank, same as it had been when we had entered the CQ area. "Nobody gave permission for you to leave."

I gave him my best Billy Idol sneer. Nagle always joked I looked like the love child of Gary Busey and Billy Idol, and I sure as hell was able to curl and lift my lip in the same way. I saw a couple of Read-D flinch.

Being ugly had its advantages sometimes.

"It seems like PFC Kebble was pretty insistent we come down and join you less than fifteen minutes ago." I answered.

"Return to your room, you are still under confinement." The LT answered. He'd turned away from Sergeant Tee to stare at us.

"How many have you lost?" Nagle asked, stepping up to my left. Bomber moved next to me on my right, shifting to parade rest. He didn't fool me, I knew that it put his hands closer to his knife.

"Five." Sergeant Tee answered before the LT could do much more than flush and open his mouth.

"He's stalking the barracks, you idiot." Bomber said, his voice flat and harsh. Above us there was a shout and the crashing of boots. "You don't understand what Winter is like here."

"Go back to your room!" The LT shouted at us. I curled my lip again. "I refuse to allow Soviet spies to contaminate my soldiers with their very presence!"

"Who are you going to have make us?" I asked. My juvie instincts told me to shut up and do what the Head Screw ordered, to not rock the boat, to keep my head down and do my time.

But Green Hill Juvie never had something like Tandy stalking J-Max.

"We're done listening to your paranoid bullshit." Nagle added. "I've been in the Army since you've been in high school, you jumped up little punk. Unlike you, I've been promoted three times."

"And unlike you, we've survived a winter here." Bomber finished. There was a shout and another crash from above us, and I saw several people flinch out of the corner of my eye.

"Guys, please." Sergeant Tee asked. "Not now."

I stared at him for a long moment, then nodded.

"We're going back to our room. We don't open the door unless we want to, we get hot meals with the rest of Rear-D, and no more of Oakes' retarded intimidation shit." I answered.

Everyone was staring at us as Nagle turned around and opened the door back to the stairwell. The cold wind whipped over us and a sobbing noise could be heard drifting down the stairwell. I smiled at the LT before I turned to walk away, pushing into the wind swept stairwell.

We walked back to our room in the darkness, not bothering to be quiet. Behind us the stairwell door crashed, but we ignored it as we pushed through the midway doors. The warmth of our room enveloped us when we went in, closing the door behind us.

"Well, that was useless and dramatic." Nagle laughed. "You know, we could have spent our time fucking, at least that would have been fun."

The door shuddered in the frame as someone hammered on it. Anger surged in me that the LT had decided to come up and follow us, to continue the argument.

I whipped open the door, my eyes seeing a shape in the darkness, one hand raised up, only eyes and teeth visible in the dim light of my room.

Before whoever it was could even move I was in motion, hand locking on the forearm of the upraised him, using my size and weight to drive them back against the door across from me. There was a squawk as I brought my knee up into their stomach, then brought my forehead down into their face. I spun in place, letting them go partway through the arc so they slammed into the far wall, but before they could do much more than bounce, I grabbed the back of their head, driving them face first into the wall, and slammed two punches into their back, one into each kidney, bringing out a garbled scream as I threw them on their back on the floor, stepping forward, planning to bring my boot into the center of their chest to destroy the sternum.

Nagle's hand grabbed my BDU shirt, pulling me back and off balance. Bomber grabbed me, holding tight.

The lights came on, illuminating the hallway as I stood there, breathing heavy, not because I was winded, but to fuel my body with more oxygen, feeling the adrenaline trickle down my spine, and the warm tingling in my extremities as my body responded to the demands of combet.

Kebble lay on the floor, writhing and sobbing, blood streaming down her face from her nose. I knew she'd be pissing blood in a few hours.

"Kebble!" Oakes' voice. I turned to see her standing less than 10 feet away, her eyes and mouth wide.

"Sic' em, boy." Nagle said, pushing on me lightly, gently tapping me in Oakes' direction. Bomber let go of my sleeve as Oakes started raising her rifle.

Without hesitating I walked toward her, flexing my hands with the crunch of knuckles that had been broken too many times. Her rifle came up, swiveling to point at my face.

"I warned you." I growled out, still walking forward, my pace deliberate and slow.

"Stay back, Ant!" She yelled, taking a small step backwards. Not that it mattered, in the time it took her to say that and take her tiny little step I'd taken two long ones. She opened her mouth to continue, but whatever she was going to say vanished.

My hand wrapped around the barrel, just behind the flash suppressor, my other hand wrapping around the spot where the stock merged with the forward receiver, and I snatched the rifle hard, pulling it away from her, then slammed it back, driving the butt plate into her face. She stumbled back and I kicked out with my foot, the rifle spinning in my hands so I held it at port arms. She went down in a heap and without a pause I slammed the toe of my combat boot into her crotch, then dropped one knee into her gut before leaning forward with the rifle across her throat.

"Hello, Oakes." I whispered, smiling at her. "Didn't quite work out like you thought, did it?" Blood was running down her face as she stared at me in hate.

"The CO's going to..." Her words choked off when I leaned forward, putting weight onto the rifle.

"Go the same way you are." I whispered gently. "We're tired of being pushed around, we're tired of being threatened, and if we're going to die, we're going down our way."

The knife whispered as it cleared the sheathe, the honed edge gleaming in the lights of the hallway. Oakes' eyes opened wide as I brought the knife up where she could see it.

"Oops." I told her, laying the cold blade against her face. "For all your strutting and Betty Badass shit, you've forgotten one thing."

"Open your mouth, bitch." Nagle said behind me.

Oakes didn't answer, just stared at me. I could see her pulse beating in her neck and had to restrain the urge to nick that pulsing spot in her neck with the point of the knife.

"You've forgotten the same thing your precious little shiner bitch has forgotten." I told her, leaning forward until our noses touched.

"Start sucking, bitch. Impress me." Nagle said. "This time you're not doing it for rank, you're doing it to survive."

"We're killers. You assholes aren't." I whispered. I slid the knife down her side until the point was just below her ribs. I pressed the knife hard enough to make it felt, but not enough to slide through the cloth of the uniform or break the skin.

The lights clicked off and I sat up quickly. There was a lewd sucking sound behind me. The emergency lights kicked on, strobed for a half second, then dimmed to a sullen red glow. Beyond the double doors the emergency light was just bright enough to make the crazed white of the shattered windows turn blood red. Footsteps pounded above us, and a shriek sounded from deeper into the building.

"Back in the room." Bomber hissed as I scrambled up, knife in one hand, rifle in the other.

"Hurry, Ant. Stab her ass and be done with it or come on." Nagle said to me. "You bitches better run." She told Oakes and Kebble.

We slammed the door, quickly sliding the chair under the handle.

"Aaaaand, we're back in the room." Nagle said, and the light flickered in agreement before dimming almost all the way down.

"There's a difference now." Bomber said.

"Yeah, what?" Nagle snarled. Tempers were starting to flare.

"We have weapons." I could feel Bomber smiling in the dark.

Outside our door there was a liquid chuckle, and in the dim light we could see frost creeping under the door and spreading out, tentacles of frost leading the way. An icicle pushed its way into my shoulder.

"Aaaand it might not matter." Bomber said.

Something chuckled in agreement on the other side of the door.

"You know," Nagle said, holding up the pistol in the dim light. The barrel glinted wetly. "I would have made her lick my pussy like a prison bitch instead of sucking this if we'd had more time."

"Yeah, but then that tongue would have been in your cunny, think about that." Bomber told her. Nagle made a face, and Bomber grinned. "Yeah. All the officers and NCO's dicks that she's scraped that tongue across, the same tongue flopping around in your gash."

"I get the point. Ew." Nagle shuddered theatrically.

The frost at the door had stopped spreading, the tentacles that led the way melting away.

"He left." I told them.

"Thank God." Nagle said, moving up next to me and putting her arm around my waist. I pretended not to notice her wiping the barrel of the .45 off on my uniform.

"There's no God here." Bomber said. "Well shit, now what do we do?"

"No more of this passive crap." I snarled, pulling away from Nagle and stomping into the middle of the room. Something upstairs mocked me, the footsteps a split second behind my own, starting and stopping when I did. I tossed the M-16A1 on the bunk. "I made a mistake, figuring that if we just kept our heads down all of this would blow over."

"Ant, don't..." Nagle started.

"We could have spoken..." Bomber said at the same time.

"Save it. I'm the one who wanted to avoid violence, I'm the one who just said go with it, I'm the one who wanted to wait until we got rescued." I pointed at the window. "Rescue isn't coming. I didn't want to say anything, but look outside. We've already got thirty feet of snow, at least, on the windward side of the barracks. It's still snowing. Last year we got sixty feet dumped on us. How much are we going to get this year?"

I walked over to the window and opened the curtains, staring at the swirling snow that was dimly illuminated by the failing light bulb. I opened my mouth to say something, then stepped back from the window, cocking my head and rhythmically opening and closing my right hand, the knuckles crunching each time.

Bomber sat on the weight bench, watching me, and Nagle leaned against the desk, setting the pistol on the desk before folding her arms beneath her breasts.

Yes, there was at least thirty feet of snow. The motor pool was twenty feet higher than the front of the building. That meant that the wind could have pushed the snow flat, into a gentle incline. The motor pool roof was twenty feet above the floor, and peaked up another twenty, making it forty feet total. We didn't have snow shoes, but that wasn't that big of a deal, if Ogg the Caveman could make the fucking things, I sure as shit could. We could walk from the window of our room to the motor pool, and hole up there if shit got bad. Let Tandy have the barracks, pull back to the motor pool, and hole up in the bay there. There was showers, war stocks, bathrooms, emergency generators, fuel, everything we needed to survive.

And skis.

One of the mandatory training courses we had to take was cross country skiing. I was a for shit downhill skier, more likely to kill myself by running face first into a tree than anything else, but as far as cross country went, I was good at it. As a long distance runner, I had the endurance to make it and thanks to mandatory training, the training to make it. Nagle was better at downhill, and Bomber was competent at both. We could take the skis, a compass, cold weather gear, and ski to main post.

The idea was perfect.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Except that Tandy was out there. We wouldn't get more than a mile before he took all three of us out.

shit

Still, the motor pool was a good idea. Right now it was dark, and trying to make it was going to be hard enough, trying to do it in the dark would be suicide.

"Dammit." I whispered. "Goddamn that Tandy."

"I think he's already damned." Bomber said. "Let me guess, any plan you come up with ends up with him feasting on our flesh?"

"Yeah." I admitted.

"Kind of makes the plan seem suboptimal." Nagle said. She started unbuttoning her shirt. "Hit the weights to pass the time or play D&D?" She asked. "If we just sit here staring at each other, we're going to go crazy."

"Weights." Bomber and I said together.

We spend awhile doing PT, and I was glad to work off the adrenaline and aggression. I'd wanted to cut Oakes, slice up her face, give her the same scar that she mocked Nagle for having. Situps helped work off the image of the knife slicing through her skin to expose her skull. Cut the little bitch's throat and slap my hand over the wound and stare her in the eyes as she went down. Pushups sent my muscle's thrumming and the look I wanted to see in her eyes went away. I'd gotten sick of the little bitch strutting around my room, breaking my shit, acting like a little tin God as she reveled in her power over us. Pressing the weights, I used my rage, my anger at Oakes and everyone like her I'd encountered in my life.

In my head I heard the cold voice telling me to stay down at the bottom of the stairwell, remembered the way it felt laying in the snow bleeding out with a bayonet stuck through my shoulder.

The weights felt good, the burning in my muscles as I pushed myself harder and harder, letting the rage flow out of me, aware that I was verging on the edge of losing control. I hated everyone but the two people in the room with me. My mother for the years of torture. My father for leaving all the time. My country for taking him from me when I needed him to protect me. My brothers for tormenting and beating on me, and for not protecting me. My sisters for either joining my mother or refusing to lift a finger to save me. Backwoods sheriffs who used their badge to do whatever they wanted and then hid behind the shield and their brothers when someone called them on it. The NCO's that viewed me as nothing more than a high school dropout and an inbred hick. The officers that dismissed me as a knuckle dragging thug. My fellow enlisted for the whispers, the looks, that they thought I didn't notice. Myself for being what I was. The mountain for being there.

God for all of it.

"Ant, enough." Nagle said, putting her hand on my forehead. "Come shower with me."

We stripped in the bathroom, underneath the dim yellow light of the bulb. She was more shadow than anything else, but she still felt good in my arms as we waited the handful of seconds for the shower to heat up.

In the shower she was hot, firm, and soapy. Her skin under my hands pushed the pounding rage back, the noises she made reminded me of how wonderful the flaws of being human were, the way she sagged in my arms letting me know that I wasn't just an animal in a cage.

I held her, standing in the spray of the shower, surrounded by steam, cloaked in dimness, and buried my face in the curve of her shoulder. She held me, rubbing her hands on my back, and making wordless sounds that were more important than any speech.

"Better?" She finally asked me.

"Yeah. I can think straight." I told her, my voice muffled.

"I'm sorry." She told me.

"For what?"

"For doing that to you. For pushing you into the hallway, for siccing you on Oakes." She sighed, rubbing my skin under the hot water.

"I'm just a boy." I told her, relishing the feel of the steam billowing around us.

"Doesn't make it right." She told me, then drew back, her face serious. "Ant, what do you know about cabin fever?"

"That it's real and deadly." I chewed on my lower lip for a moment, thinking. "It's probably what's going to spark off the first murder in the barracks, and be what's behind the explosion that the murder will cause."

"It's getting a little more real for us." She told me. I was silent for a moment, waiting, and she continued. "Bomber."

"What about him?" I asked.

"There's a very real chance the two of you will kill each other over me." She told me. When I shook my head in denial she pushed me against the wall of the shower, leaning back herself. She was against the shower knobs, her face out of the water, partly concealed by the steam, and barely visible in the dim light.

"You two are..." she thought for a second. "Very physical. Aggressive. He hasn't said anything yet, and he might not even know, but it won't be long before he begins to fixate on me. He's started staring at me the last couple of days, and it was really noticeable when we were working out."

"Vain much?" I asked, still smiling.

"I'm not kidding, Ant. This is very real." She put her hand on my chest. "We can either nip this in the bud, or we can face the consequences of ignoring it."

"It's no big deal if you guys fuck." I told her, smiling. "Hell, it isn't like we haven't gotten drunk and taken turns on you before."

"That's not what I'm talking about." She said, smiling for a moment. "Sex is part of it, yeah. But he's going to need affection, attention, not just be a walking talking vibrator I use to satisfy myself."

I knew I was frowning.

"Either that or go down and kill the LT and have me move back in my room." She told me. "He's your best friend, but you need to be realistic. If we end up in here long enough, the two of you will try to kill one another, either over me or over some imagined slight." Her hand stopped over my heart and put faint pressure on the skin.

"We aren't boyfriend and girlfriend, and it's my decision who I fuck, who I spend time with, and what I do." She told me. "Ant, don't look like that. I don't want you two trying to murder each other, I don't want to lose either one of you." Her hand moved up to my lip and pressed softly, making my broken teeth twinge. "I spent too much of myself keeping the two of you alive. Nobody on Earth is more important to me than the two of you."

"I got it." I told her. Bomber and her had slept together before, hell, we'd fulfilled some of her pretty nasty fantasies after the last winter, felt her groan and strain between us. But for some reason, instead of it being amusing, the thought of Nancy's arms and legs around John made me angry.

"You gonna be OK?" She asked me, stepping up and putting her arms around me.

"It doesn't matter. I'm just a boy." I answered.

"Don't say that." She said. "Admit how you feel, please, for me."

"I'm afraid you'll stop loving me." I admitted.

There, it was out in the open.

"No, Ant, I won't stop loving you." She told me, lifting up her chin and kissing me. "Nothing could do that." I nodded.

"Then I'll be fine." I told her. I wasn't lying. Knowing she'd still love me made the idea of her and Bomber together, of them laying there whispering to one another, bearable and not something that made my fists clench and my gut tighten.

We turned off the shower, toweled off, and dressed quickly, bumping into each other and laughing.

When she opened the bathroom door, John was standing in the darkness, the dim light from the bathroom washing over him. It made him into a creature of shadow, barely recognizable, something different than my friend.

"Having fun?" He asked. I hadn't noticed before the way his stance had changed before, the tightness in his voice, the hard glitter in his eyes, and the almost betrayed feeling rolling off of him.

I realized that Nancy might have taken too long to bring it up.

John was a big guy, something that was easy for me to forget after the years we'd spent as good friends. He was over six feet of Texas rawhide and iron, thick muscle from pumping iron and throwing around heavy ammunition turning what would have been a tall lanky Texan into a 225 or more pound monster. I'd seen a bull throw him, drag him around as it whipped in circles, and then land with both feet on him, and John just pop up like a jack in the box as soon as he got free. I'd been back to back with him in fights, spotted him while pumping iron, and sparred with him. I'd seen him take an axe to the gut and survive his appendix being ruptured.

He was big, he was mean, and he was tougher than bad beef jerky.

I felt the spit dry up in my mouth as his tone and body language dawned on me. His eyes, pale slits in the dimness, were locked on me, not Nagle, and the twisted look of anger and betrayal on his face was more than imagination, more than the dimness, but a real thing aimed at me.

"Fun's just started, John." Nancy said, her voice low, husky, and dripping with sexual appeal. When he opened his mouth to reply, she stepped into him, her arms going around him, and she pressed her mouth to his. His eyes widened, and he looked at me. I smiled, slapped him on the shoulder as I walked past, grabbed the rifle off the bed, and drug one of the chairs over to the window and looked outside.

I stared at the snow, ignoring the sounds behind me, and broke the weapon down by rote habit, setting the pieces on the three drawer chest without taking my eyes from the window, finishing up by pulling out the cleaning kit from the butt of the weapon. I dug a cloth out of drawer to put on the top of the dresser to put the parts on when I was done, then dug another piece of torn brown T-shirt out of the drawer and got up.

Nancy was holding Bomber down, her back arched, eyes closed, hips rocking. Her hands were tight around his wrists and had them pushed into the blankets. I walked past, grabbed the rubbing alcohol and the CLP/breakfree and came back in.

John was looking at me, and I reached down and tapped him in the middle of the forehead hard with my finger, grinning at him while I did it. He glanced at Nagle's breasts swinging above his head, then at me, and I chuckled, tapped him again, and walked back over to the chair, scooping up the pistol as I moved by.

Both weapons had a slight bit of rust on them. Oakes' weapon was particularly bad, the bolt filmed with it. I set to work, stripping the hand guards away, and pulling the weapon down further than was usual, taking off the butt plate, the trigger guard, the bolt cover, everything.

"You cum to early and I'll wrap my hands around your throat and strangle another hard on out of you." I heard Nancy growl, gasping sharply a couple times.

Knowing she was perfectly willing to do that made me grin as I kept cleaning the weapons, laying each piece on the cloth. I ran over our options, thought my way through the decision trees that each action opened up, and tried laying out plans.

All of them ended with all three of us dead from our fellow soldiers or frozen in the snow or dead at the cold hands of Tandy.

No matter how I ran the numbers we were likely to come out the same way. Dead.

When I heard Nagles war-like cry as she orgasmed I began snapping the .45 together, checking the action as Bomber finished. Satisfied on how the pistol operated, I set it aside and began assembling the M-16A1, the whole time staring out the window as they whispered to one another.

That was the hard part. The two of them whispering, the giggles from Nagle you only heard after she came, the chuckling from both of them, and the rustle of their movements.

Being excluded.

I realized what had driven Bomber to the edge. Not that Nagle and I were having sex, but that we were excluding him from what came afterward. The sharing, the small talk, the affectionate byplay. Watching and hearing your two best friends excluding you from something when you were right there.

It hurt worse than anything else, but I pushed it down ruthlessly, snapping together the upper and lower receivers. Now I knew what I'd accidentally and carelessly done to my best friend. I hurt, but I'd get over it. The pain was more out of embarrassment and guilt than anything else.

I ran SPORTS a couple times on the rifle, then disassembled the magazine, checking the spring, before snapping it together and then reloading it. Thirty rounds of copper jacketed 5.56mm NATO rounds.

Thirty kills.

I heard footsteps padding behind me as I set the magazine down and drew my knife, moving slower when I heard the footsteps.

"You all right, Ant?" John asked, dropping his hand onto my shoulder.

I set the knife on the table, reaching up to put my hand on top of his.

"Yeah, John, I'm OK now. You?" I slid open the drawer and pulled out the whetstone.

"Better." There was a long pause, during which I let go of his hand and picked up the CLP to squirt a little on the stone. When I started running the edge across the stone as if I was cutting into it, he broke the silence again. "Sorry."

"It's OK, man. Perfectly normal." I reassured him. "You should have said something, brother."

He sighed, his hand still on my shoulder. "I know. I don't get it how it happened. First it didn't bother me. Then I started thinking how it wasn't fair that you got her. Then I started thinking about how I had had her a few times. Then it got to the point where all I had to do was take care of you and I could have her."

"How long?" I asked, switching hands with the stone and the knife. I was still splitting my concentration between the blade and stone in my hands, the window, and his voice.

"This morning. It dawned on me while you two were having sex that all I had to do to take your place is take you out." He heaved a deep breath. "Then, when you came back from getting our laundry, it dawned on me how easy it would be. Finally, in the hallway, I knew that if I didn't take you out, you'd take me out." The last part sounded embarrassed.

"You two going to be all right?" Nancy asked from behind me. I could picture her in my mind, legs crossed, propped up on one arm, the other arm underneath her breasts, sweat covering her and a faint smile dancing on her lips.

"We're working on it." I answered, keeping my tone gentle.

"Give us a few, will you, Nancy?" John asked.

"Yeah, I'm gonna hit the shower." She told us. We stayed silent till the bedsprings creaked and the bathroom door shut. Bomber let go of my shoulder and padded away, coming back after the bathroom door shut, dragging the chair from in front of the door with him. He sat down beside me, his knife in his hand, and held out his hand.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"Hand me another stone and the break free, will you?" He asked. I nodded, pulling open the drawer and pulling out the ceramic sharpening rod, then handed him the stone.

"I'm done with that." I told him. We sat silently for a moment, sharpening our knives, the only sound the water and the scrape of our knives.

"I miss you, you know." He told me.

"I've been right here." I told him.

"Yeah, but we quit talking after the LT had us tuned up." He stopped sharpening and turned to look at me. "Ant, we talk all the damn time. After the LT got done having our asses beat, you kind of shut me out."

"Sorry." I told him, setting aside my knife. "I just felt bad for having us walk right into it. I mean, shit, I didn't know what they were planning when they took Nancy away, but I sure as hell knew when they came back for you."

"I didn't think they would actually do it." He chuckled, then touched his throat. "Thank God for amateurs."

"No shit." I agreed. I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder. "You're right, I've been withdrawing. I don't know why. And I'm sorry."

"I know why, and I understand." Bomber told me. "Hell, for the first few months we worked together you barely talked at all. You were just reverting to back how you were before we met." He laughed, and things felt all right again. "Your brother is the one who never shuts the fuck up." I laughed too, and he smiled.

"We good?" He asked.

"Yeah, brother, we're good." I told him, picking my knife back up.

"Listen, you call the play, I got your back." He told me, picking his back up and going back to sharpening his knife. He did it with little circles, I always ran the edge of the blade into the stone. Pulling away curled the edge, while running the blade down the edge kept it from curling or folding.

"Thanks." I told him. "We're going to have to talk with Nancy about how we're gonna handle this." He opened his mouth and I held up the knife, not threateningly, but to stop him, then continued. "I'm not talking about the fucking part, I'm talking about the three of us talking, being honest with each other. Admit it, you were ready to kill me."

"I don't know what I was planning." He admitted. He made a noise, and I turned to look him, and he blushed. "To be brutally honest, I was pissed at her too. Angry at her for taking my best friend away from me."

"Fag." I said, punching him in the shoulder.

"You wish, hick." He grinned, punching me back.

"At ease that shit." Nancy's voice came from behind us. Neither one of us had noticed she'd finished her shower and come out. "It'll start like this, then I'll be kicking you apart while you roll around on the floor trying to stab each other."

"Naw, we're good." Bomber said.

"I'd rather not take the chance." She said, sitting down naked on the weight bench. "Does this mean I can finally quit wearing clothing around the two of you?"

I chuckled and John blushed.

"I'm serious. I've hated having to wear clothing constantly." She sighed. "And I miss touching myself. You guys are just fine, but I really like touching myself."

"Fine with me." I told her.

"I think I'd like that." John added.

"Fine, one rule." I looked over, seeing her straddling the bench, and felt a surge of lust at the way she looked.

"What?" John asked, his voice suddenly rougher.

"I say who I fuck and when. You can ask, but no planning who gets me when behind my back bullshit." She told us. "Plus, you two need to learn to walk around naked too."

"Why?" I blurted out.

"It'll keep the two of you vulnerable, less likely to start something with each other. I want the two of you nice and docile while we're locked in here." She said, and her tone, expression, and the flint in her eyes brooked no argument. "Besides, you aren't the only one who likes to look at the opposite sex." She smiled.

She turned around, then laid back, putting her feet against the pads for the leg lift.

"Finish sharpening your knives, there's no hurry." She grinned.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

As soon as I recover the rest of this from my old HD, I'll post it if folks are still keen on reading it :)