Kilo-29 (Damned of the 2/19th, Book 15)

Part 50

Site Kilo-29
Winter-1993
Day ???

The echo of the door slamming shut hadn't faded when I threw myself against the door, throwing the bar with my right hand, ignoring the rolling agony, and drawing my knife with my right and pistol with my left. I was an ambidextrous shooter, not that it mattered with a rifle or light machinegun, and had practiced a lot for a knife in my right and pistol in my left.

There were a lot of people who went with the school of thought that ranged combat was a thing of the past, quoting police statistics and the jungles of Vietnam and Panama as if those were the only battlefields that mattered. The other side believed that artillery, tank fire, and air support made infantry practically useless, with smart bombs and laser guided munitions the infantryman was little more than a relic, that long ranged combat ruled the day.

I fell in the middle. I believed that both close combat and extended range should be practiced. True, my job was mostly long range, since you don't toss a 125KT round at someone only a few yards away, but experience had taught me that the battlefield was a fluid thing, where one minute you might be engaging things right in your face, and the next minute shooting out at 200 or 300 meters without a change in terrain. Kuwait City had been a good example of that, the same with The Highway to Hell, where we engaged tanks and APC's at point blank range from the back of a pickup truck and then called in fire support or did laser guidance for Warthog hits less than 5 minutes later.

Tandy liked it up close and personal, to grab them, tear at them, feel the fear as he went at them with claws and teeth. He liked to strike from ambush, grab them, and pull them with him away from everyone so he could take his time with them. he liked it close.

That was OK, I liked it up close too.

The door thumped and clattered, the system obviously damaged from the sudden drop of the door. I hammered on it, willing it to open so I could go after Tandy, take the fight to him, and end it once and for all.

"Aw, did the poor boys lose someone they liked?" Kebble giggled.

"Goddamn you, bring him back!" I shouted, kicking at the door. "Goddamn you, Tandy!"

"He's with us now, Fifty." Oakes laughed. "Such fun we'll have together."

Donaldson grabbed the back of my LBE, hauling on it. "Sergeant, he's gone, you said it yourself, he takes them, they're gone!"

"No! Goddamn it, no!" I shouted, kicking at the door as he drug me back. "Goddamn you, Tandy!"

"Sergeant, we need to go!" Kincaid shouted from inside his suit. "He's gone, Sergeant!"

Killain, Oakes, and Kebble all laughed.

"No!" Donaldson was pulling me backwards through the snow, but I wasn't strong enough to fight him. Repeated injuries, exhaustion, and the skull fracture having robbed me of all the strength I'd busted my ass to build.

The sound of Shads screaming in pain echoed through the corridor, high pitched sounds of pure animal agony. The sound spurred me to redouble my efforts to get free, and I struggled against Donaldson harder, trying to get back at the closed door that mocked me. The closed door that Shads was on the other side of, trapped with whatever it was that Tandy/Bishop had become.

Donaldson spun me around and slapped me across the face.

Hard.

My vision greyed and tunneled, a high pitched whining kicking off in my right ear, and a loud rushing noise under it all. The tunnel corridor of Kilo-29 vanished to be replaced by the ice covered hallway of Queer Country on the first floor of the 2/19th barracks. Blood spattered the walls, the doors separating Titty Territory from Queer Country missing, scorch marks and blast damage on the walls from where the boobytrap had gone off that had nearly killed Bomber and me.

Only Bomber, Stokes, Nancy, Taggart and the others weren't there.

Donaldson stood in front of me, dressed in makeshift cold weather gear, frostbite on his nose and his cheekbones peeling. He had thick grease on his face to protect his skin from the wind and the abrasive affect of the snow seed crystals. He had a ragged wound down the side of his face, with neat stitches the entire length of it.

Someone was screaming in pain.

Shads.

"Sergeant Ant!" He yelled in my face.

It started to come back.

There was another noise under Shads' screaming, a panting sound, an almost animalistic grunting mixed in with the panting.

My vision came back with a snap, blurry and shot with sparkles, but in color and not tunneled down weirdly. The barracks were gone, replaced with the cold tunnels that served as hallways inside of Kilo-29. Donaldson's face looked normal, well, as normal as you could expect. His eyes were sunken dark pits, a 1,000 yard stare mixed with exhaustion and the signs of a man pushed to edge. He had four bad slashes across his face, all of them oozing blood down his face, and his face was pale with exhaustion and blood loss.

"He's gone, we're not, Sergeant." Donaldson said. his lips were cracked and bleeding from the cold. "We need to get back to the Major, Sergeant." Shads' screaming was lowering in volume, and we could hear the other sound clearly. A woman in the throes of passion.

The screaming stopped as the woman, it could only be Oakes, came loudly, screamingly, her ecstasy mocking Shads' agony.

"We've got to go before those things or Tandy rush us again." Donaldson yelled at me. I nodded dumbly. I was trying to remember what the hell was going on.

Oakes' noises trailed off into all three women giggling.

The red hot rage crumbled to ash, bitter on my tongue, as I realized that there was nothing I could do. It didn't matter whether or not Shads was his real name, all that mattered is the man I'd come to like, still liked even after I had learned who he worked for, had been taken by Tandy/Bishop.

I could remember.

Shads was gone.

"I'm with you." I said. I shook my head. "I'm all right." My knife had fallen into the snow, and I bent down, picked it up, and put it back in the sheathe on the LBE. I was confused, positive that we had to get from the motorpool back to the barracks, to carry the fight to the people who had been our comrades, our brothers and sisters, only a few days prior, but knowing that those events were years in the past and thousands of miles away. Those events were fading, but they still made me uncertain. I was tired, and hurt all over.

But we were all injured.

"We don't have time for this, Sergeant, we need to get back to the others." Donaldson told me. I nodded at him. "Sergeant, please say something."

"You're right, we've got to get back to the Major and the others and set up isolation then call for a biohazard team." I told him. He smiled and nodded.

"Let's get going." I said. "Kincaid, lead the way. Donaldson, you're in the middle, I'll pull drag."

The door squealed suddenly, and we heard something break inside, the crunch of stress metal finally giving it up. I looked back at the door, noting that it was raised up a good six inches, and saw Shads' rifle laying in the snow.

"We'll need that." Donaldson said, walking back toward it. I grabbed his arm and he stopped, looking at me curiously as I motioned to Kincaid to join us.

"Good call, Corporal. Don't leave anything behind for the enemy." I told him, letting go of him, pointing at the weapon, and shaking my head. I pointed at Kincaid, then the door. He looked at me for a second, then nodded. "Kincaid, you watch out, I'm going to check the map. Donaldson, recover Shads' weapon."

Donaldson walked up carefully to the weapon as I took the pistol in both hands. I stayed a few steps back while Kincaid readied himself, watching the bottom of the door. The tension was thick as Donaldson knelt down, reached out, and wrapped his hands around the weapon. His shoulders bunched and forearms tightened as he started to pull it back.

That's when two small pale hands shot out from under the door and grabbed the weapon. Donaldson threw himself backwards, pulling the rifle with him as he went back.

The small hands vanished into blood stained winter BDU's that were pulled through the under the door until something thunked into the door with a dull knock.

I started shooting. Firing three times into one arm and then three times into the other. Blacked and clotted blood spattered the snow as small dark dots appeared in the sleeves from where the .45 rounds punched into the arms.

Kincaid knelt down and jammed the nozzle of the flamethrower ejector into the gap, triggering it with a whoosh.

The screams from the other side weren't pain, but red hot rage.

The hands released the weapon, and Donaldson spun it around as he landed on his ass, shooting under the door as Kincaid waved it backed and forth, holding down the trigger.

"Clear!" Donaldson yelled, trying to be heard over the screams of whoever was on the other side of the door and the echoes of the rifle fire.

The bolt locked back as Kincaid let off the trigger and jerked back.

The tone of the screaming changed from an enraged woman to something inhuman, something that belonged in the darkness. It echoed and reechoed, getting louder and louder as the echoes overlapped and built on whatever was screaming on the other side of the six inch thick door.

With a crash the door slammed down.

"You shit sucking little bastards." The mirth was missing from Oakes' voice.

"You're still a loser, even dead, Oakes." I said, turning around. "Let's go before Tandy shows up."

"Fuck you, Ant, when he pulls you in here, I'll take my time with you, you fucking one-eyed bastard." Oakes hissed.

I just laughed at her.

Dark laughter wound around us, joining my laughter, and Oakes, or whatever was pretending to be her, screamed in rage as we clomped down the hallway.

"You knew." Donaldson said.

"Duh. Haven't you ever seen any horror movies?" Kincaid asked.

"I told you, my dad didn't allow TV in our house." Donaldson said.

"Damn, man, when we get out of here we gotta go to the video store and educate you." Kincaid laughed. "That was Horror Movie 101. Dumbass tries to grab something and evil asshole grabs them and drags them through the vent, the window, the doorway, whatever."

"Yeah." I chuckled. "It's pretty basic."

"So why was it the woman instead of Tandy?" Donaldson asked.

I thought for a second and Kincaid spoke before I could. "Because Tandy thought it was funny to let her try? Because he would have grabbed your wrists and snatched you under the door?"

"He's busy eating Shads." I said.

That put a dampener on our conversation, and we walked through the cold for a long time without saying a word. The fans on Kincaid's suit and the crunch of our boots in the snow was about the only sound. Oakes, Kebble, and Killain has shut up once the screaming was over and the silence, combined with the darkness, pressed in on us like a living thing.

When we threw the bar to get into the motorpool and the door rose up to reveal a faint light the feeling of relief was one of the better things I'd felt in awhile. As the door went down we all sagged against the walls of the motorpool, looking at the rows of frost covered vehicles.

"We need to check the 5-tons." I said as we moved past some M-113's. "We'll have the others load up some GP-Mediums, we'll fill a fuel truck full of diesel, grab a generator, and hope for the best." All of the vehicles were covered with a thick glaze of ice and ice crystals were floating down from the dark. Most of the lights were out, only a few here and there.

"We should check your vehicle first, Sergeant. Make sure the others got back all right." Donaldson said.

"Who?" I asked, stopping and looking at Donaldson. "The Gypsy Wagon should be right over there." I waved at where we'd parked it. "We'll grab the heavy weapons and have the Major set them up in the blast deflection corridor. We'll throw out some Claymores and some Bettys and see if we can grab a pallet or two of sandbags from the Event Locker storage."

Both Kincaid and Donaldson looked at me for a moment, then Donaldson nodded real quick, a short, choppy motion. "That sounds good, Sergeant. The Major has already moved to the blast deflection tunnel, let's go coordinate with him."

"Good plan." I said. We took a quick turn and headed toward the entrance.

Something growled at us from the darkness behind us. There was the skittering of claws on rock off to our left and when Donaldson looked at me I nodded, making a twitching motion with my pistol. Donaldson nudged Kincaid, who clicked the igniter twice, something we'd learned was his way of telling us he was more than ready.

Metal bonged off to our right and Donaldson made a noise that was close to snicker.

"We can see you, Samuel. Walking with Donaldson just to your left." Kebble whispered from the darkness. "You've been thinking about him, thinking about how nice it would be to have his hands on your waist, feel him sliding inside of you until his hips are pressed against your ass cheeks, feeling him cum deep inside of you." Oakes tittered. "You'll never pass the security clearance investigation, Samuel, they'll find out what you want but have never had the guts to do."

Kincaid clicked the igniter.

Claws skittered in the darkness and something made a snarling noise right after there was the sound of metal being depressed by weight and then released.

"You think Ant can save you, Samuel?" Oakes asked, a nasty snigger in her voice. "He can't even save himself."

"Yeah, well he's still alive and you aren't, bitch." Kincaid snarled. "You got fed to Tandy, and he fucked that Nancy chick you wanted so bad."

The silence afterwards made him smile.

The door was closed, and took forever to open. The whole time we kept an eye on the darkness behind us. I reached up to my helmet out of habit, looking for my NVG's, and let my hand drop when I touched the empty band. I'd lost them somewhere, and couldn't even remember where.

"My batteries are dead." Donaldson said. Kincaid just grinned and I shook my head.

"Think they're gonna rush us?" Donaldson asked.

"No way. They've learned to fear my baby." Kincaid said, snapping the igniter. In the darkness there was a scrabbling noise that quickly receded from us.

Kincaid chuckled.

I'd have to watch that boy.

As soon as the door was open enough we darted through and I held down the CANCEL button while Kincaid stood in the entryway, aiming back into the darkness.

Something whipped out of the darkness, but Kincaid got the ejector up in time and it bounced off the barrel assembly with a clang and a shower of sparks.

"FUCK YOU!" Kincaid shouted, triggering the weapon and shooting a long stream of flame into the room, through the closing door.

Something ran screaming further into the darkness, completely wreathed in flame, shrieking in agony as it tried to run away from the fire that clung to it.

In a split second I was back on the grass at Ramstein, being held down, watching the Burning Man erupt from the crowd carrying children. The smell of burning flesh and jet fuel, of burning metal, the patches of ice cold on my back surrounded by fiery agony, and the yells of someone for me to not move, to stop fighting.

I pulled myself out of the memory, away from something I kept trying to shove down and away, and watched as the door slammed shut.

We turned from the door and headed toward the exit, walking an arm's length from one another. Kincaid in the middle, Donaldson on the right with his rifle, and me on the left with my pistol.

When we came around the corner I could see the vehicles huddled up by the blast absorption plug, headlights shining on us, and a row of sandbags dividing the vehicles form the tunnel.

"Halt! Who goes there?" Someone shouted.

"Sergeant Ant, Corporal Donaldson, and Specialist Kincaid!" Donaldson yelled.

"Fuck you!" Someone shouted. "We're not falling for that bullshit again!"

Muzzles flashed as they began firing.