I fire murder down the hillside, windows shatter, the un-killed inside die, as they should. Do the brittle spastic dance as fast metal took them and shook them. I slide my featureless muzzle over to cover the doorway and put the rest of the clip in Dickey as he spills out…men, women and children rushing out with guns, terminal and unprepared; lazy minds soon to be freed. Frontline Special Report is here; a real scoop by Fuck and Jesus! I put another clip of three hundred in and glance at the Blood Major. He mumbles under his breath, on one knee, sprays the soldiers caught in the open with screaming metal. Back in my own optic I see Dickey try to set up a mortar underneath us and point at the ridge excited…barking orders with a silent mouth. No chance, I thought and I fill them with hot metal…punch great holes through Dickey coughing and jumping in the crossfire as their bones are blown out…mortar falls from lifeless hands; everything as it should be. I felt flush with good duty, serene and holy with job and work; blood rushing with God in my fingers.
Sudden high crack and whine and my optic is off cutting a great gash across my cheek to the bone. The discreet lens under the flash eliminator smashed plastic. I swear loudly and I stand up tall, fearless and arrogant, emptying the clip into their bunkhouse. Aiming with the crude manual sights, wood splinters and steel clangs and buckles. Dickey falls and stumbles startled and dies. My rifle clicks empty as bullets hit around me and I drop my war rifle, feed dead too; useless. I draw both Officers Nokia Master Blaster’s from my 58 webbing and start to run down the hill teeth gritted, face a sheen of warm blood, keen to die and keen to kill, terminal and livid and running. ‘Liberate you!’ I am shouting.
‘Fuck yes, Johnson, I’m with you boy!’ And the Blood Major is out in the open covering my charge with a fresh clip of three hundred, green light glows against the dirt on his cheek.
I run low using the land as cover, thirty mercury tipped rounds wait in each hand as surviving Dickey advances in a straggling formation up the hillside his camp burning bright behind him. The Blood Major cuts them down with short controlled bursts; a textbook cull…and I hit the camp at a manic run blood rushing in my ears, loud as the voice of God. I enter the nearest hut and open fire with both hands de-personifying the contents to Jesus and Fuck. ‘Liberate that!’ I yell at the bloody mess on the walls. I slip one Blaster into its holster, the feed goes dead, and drop a cull bomb as I leave the hut.
I am hit in the gut, happened on the hill, and I jab my thigh with a Medic standing foolish in the open. I feel a tug at my other thigh and I’m knocked down on one knee firing my guns across the camp and pulling myself into cover of a Dick jeep, leg hit now…find the Blood Major there, knees in the mud, keen eyes looking for the shooter. I put a field dressing over my bleeding thigh hiding the bone from view; vivid red powers my wrath. I take some pills and jab another Medic in.
‘You hit Johnson?’
‘Sir. Twice.’
‘Cock!’
‘Sir.’
The hut blows behind us in a sudden leap of stained wood and tin.
‘Clear.’ I say, the Blood Major puts in another clip of three hundred…grabs the extra pack off my back and takes out two bombs and throws them far across the camp…another hut blows behind us, hot debris dance in the air alive…camp destroyed old testament style…great pictures…must be more…buildings on the other side of the camp near the bridge blow then, must be a magazine, like hell surging up from the ground.
‘That got him, Johnson!’ Says the Blood Major as his arm burst in a red mist up by his shoulder, ‘Maybe fucking not. Johnson, you cock!’ He takes pills arm hanging loose and I jab his thigh with a Medic. ‘Johnson, liberate that Dick!’
‘On it sir.’ I see the shooter lying still in the shadow of a blackened tree, caught sight of his muzzle flash as bullets rattle off the jeep; his rifle feed on Dickeys screen giving me a fix.
‘Cover me, sir.’ The Blood Major slaps on a field dressing and says, ‘Go!’ and I’m off out of cover angling for a ditch at the edge of the camp, running low between bodies liberated with quiet eyes. The Major opens fire, but cries out and the shooter is on me again…bullets chasing me and catching up, tearing my back open to my ribs…I dive in the ditch panting and, letting my blood drip, take more pills, crunching them viciously between my teeth. I can hear the Major swearing and risk a glance across the stained dirt…the shooter has him pinned down bullets pinging off the jeep like big hail. I’m up and running low firing both guns…taking two in the stomach knocking me off aim before I zero in and Dickeys head snaps back and stays there silent in defeat and new freedom.
There is silence and blood leaks warm and thick from my middle. I fall to my knees the wind blowing flickering angry fire flat against the ground. I roll on my back a Chopper above me circling whipping rainbow flares into frenzy. I find a field dressing and slap it on my leaking guts. The Blood Major walks over bleeding victory from his arm tucked in his battle blouse. He jabs two Medics in my thigh and helps me up. We lurch to the blackened tree and sit in cover with dead Dickey, open head of flies. Reloading and dripping warm red, field bandages soaking through with deaths warm blood, we take pills. A POX Sky Chopper hovers in front of us. I can see the Majors shoulder blade; he can see my spine.
‘We showed them Gods stuff, eh cock?’
‘We did, sir! Showed them to Fuck and Jesus.’ Smiles, thumbs up from the Choppers crew; magic feed…the anchor on the screen on the Choppers flank tells it like it is…flashes back to Washington; the old glory days. We see our accepted recommendations on the banner.
The Chopper going giddy suddenly and is spinning into the ground as the tail is hit by heavy murder from the river. It goes down crumpling like cardboard and we hit the ground as fire rushes around us. We stagger up gasping for breath, slapping flames out on each other, air short. Another Chopper coming in filming the first.
A gun rattles from the bridge and the Blood Major goes over bursting in a dozen places.
‘Look at the red, sir! See life warm blood.’ I say as I shove Medics into his legs helping him up. We hear the rattle of guns from the bridge, feel bullets hit close.
‘Boat landing, Johnson, get to it. I’ll take the bridge.’ He is chewing pills firing hard at the bridge all the time from the hip with his one hand.
Small boat hits the shore. I draw both guns and crouch behind the tree, raining mercury and lead at the bodies. Five Dickeys with long deathware leap out and five Dickeys go down the mercury blowing them up inside. I can feel the heat from the burning Chopper on my back. I keep firing into the river small splashes dancing, Dickey dead, as he should be; in water source of life lapping the shore red and splintered white of man and fish. I lob a grenade into the boat, it blows and the POX Sky Chopper hovers low getting fine pictures. It opens up on the other boats in the river as mines blow water into white columns of steam. Earth’s once blue vein ripped asunder running red in the thin rain.
A scream from the east and a Sky Jet too low, flashing silver sliver, catches a tilted wing on the raw edge of the bridge and becomes a great ball of fire, back broken, two halves spinning over and over.
‘I am Gods time to die, cock!’ The Blood Major is shouting; Dickey on the bridge liberated, intermittent fire over…heat catches in my throat…smell of the dead takes over from the smell of the cooking…downtime? I look over to the bridge and reload my Nokias urgent.
‘Incoming sir!’ I shout as I see two jeeps hurtle toward us off the bridge with fire flashing from muzzles, light glinting from discreet eyes. The Blood Major stays on his knees firing his rifle with one hand…bullets spit sand around his feet…spit blood through his torso…splash my face…I throw my last cull bomb. The lead jeep turns into a molten white replica of itself, hurtles out of control…disintegrated by Gods will and my righteous rage. Tugs in my chest make me fall…see myself on their screen all hit and humble…angry I fire at the screen till it burst, showers me with tiny glass tinkling into the water. I see Dickeys forces massing on the opposite bank, filling the river with busy boats low and twisting around mines.
The Blood Major murders the second jeep with a long sustained burst. Two figures run from the wreck. I struggle to my knees waving my pistols and fire hard at the running figures…the Major reloads another clip of three hundred…world turning black on me…blood on my face sticky…body broken for God…fall back and see a crawling figure in bloody and burnt green raise a rifle at us; no chance.
‘Cover me, you cock!’ The Major is shouting; eyes only for the running figures…his battle blouse soaked with fresh blood, bent legs holding him up by pills, hip torn to the bone, stained sand grinding in the joint…I murder the crawling figure and then try to get to my knees again, cover the Major…everything as God intended…but the Blood Major needs no cover.
He turns slowly back to me, lazily shooting into bodies on the ground as they jump and leak, forced to play on.
I fall back twisted and cold in the chest…trying to stand, trying to sit…I turned my helmet feed onto my face…empty breath where once I had words.
‘Johnson, you cock, good man.’ The Blood Major sinks to the ground; broken and gasping…he got on his shoulder radio and sticks a cigarette in my gas mask.
‘Bridge secure. Baps get the half-track down here I’m too fucked to get back up the hill. We lost Johnson. Out.’
With great effort, I reloaded both pistols looking around for other crawling survivors but I saw just flame and craters, bloody green clothes and twisted hardware; Dickey all ruined. All as it should be. Job duty and good work.
‘Johnson!’ He slapped me. ‘Johnson! Life is deaths warm blood, Johnson!’ He slapped me again. ‘Johnson! Quote me, you cock!’ He sticks his last Medic in my leg and sits next to me. Helps me sip water and pills.
Trying to speak but my chest was cold and breath was short. I saw the ridge above us fill with Fodder Infantry and half-tracks and the FLC Guadalcanal with a NBCBN screen breaking through the thinned out trees…Frontline. I was on the screen, split with POX Sky Choppers and the Blood Major sitting calmly both red as dawn with flapping green dirty exposing scarred and scratched white bone. The anchorman reviewing my career and announcing my posthumous decorations. I heard a mechanized rattle of murder from the riverbank; too close…the Blood Major goes over with a sudden gasp and lay still eyes wide.
‘Johnson, you cock!’ He gasps, on the ground next to me.
‘Sir!’ I gasp. His body missing huge chunks.
My brain numb we lay there the horrible downtime getting its icy fingers in deeper than Jesus. I heard a half-tracks rumbling diesel and saw it come out of the tree line below Frontline…a green rumbling murder machine stuck on auto, Baps firing the killing gun over our heads, de-personifying the boat crew on the bank…Baps to the rescue; Washington all over again. Action on the Guadalcanal screen up on the ridge a clear pictures of the Blood Major and me waging fine war…the anchor talking of Washington; classic clips on the split screen, that Special Report that made us legend…discussing our heavy wounds…de-existing fast now, the Blood Major breathing heavily…the dirt wet and red stinking of fuel and the dead. Downtime, fucking downtime! And flies around my stomach; only the great pictures can give any relief. I can see the turret of the Thatcher above the trees behind our half-track coming our way.
Sky Choppers line up over the river and rattle white fire and flares on to the opposite bank and the boats underneath them, a wall of bullets smacking the land.
‘You want to work in the hospitals, Johnson?’
‘No sir!’
‘Want to lose your rank do you?’
‘Fuck and Jesus no, sir!’
‘Want to kill and die, Johnson?’
‘Fuck and Jesus yes, Major!’ Not lie here in horrible downtime waiting to get locked up inside Frontline; downtime forever, watching the action; just watching, no green Go light or low hum from your feed, never again another clip of three hundred, never again the wonderful rush of the crossfire with your image huge and real time, never again visible to millions, never re-run over and over, never to wear your rank again, no further promotion with the arena out of your grasp, no more high octane feats with every thing as it should be, no more Washington’s; no more of Gods terminal masterpiece with me a grateful pawn.
‘Then quote me, Carnage Captain, you cock!’ said the Blood Major and he took his Officers Nokia Master Blaster from its holster with a hand showing bone…small buzz as the feed came on line and the blink of the green Go light…looking up at the Thatcher he shot himself in the head with a fast five shot burst…every fifth round a live feed. I saw it all huge behind him…his massive image dwarfing the real figure…his head blown across the hillside screen over and over, the NBCBN anchor ecstatic.
POX already had the Blood Major being decorated split with a death raid from the feed of a Divine Wind Jet out over the ocean…I laid back and looked at the gray sky full of smoke and bright coloured flares swirling in circles under the Choppers, the roar of battle seeming distant as the cold ate into me sharp like God’s claiming claws…a couple of Sky Planes coming low up the river; POX recon. feed. I drew my own Officers Nokia Master Blaster, feed already buzzing like a patient bee and quoted the Blood Major one last time; Incoming, I thought, everything as it should be…
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