Ain't War Hell?
By: Maximillian von Fischgeist
Chapter One:
Night
"Only four left," he spat, shaking the cigarette pack to see if perhaps a hidden one might join the
others from some hidden corner. No such luck. He'd started the night with well over half a pack.
That had been at 24:00. He pulled one of the cigarettes out and put it to his lips. Closing the box
and replacing it in his jacket pocket, he glanced at his wristwatch. He was reminded with
annoyance that he couldn't see the face. Too dark. He pushed the light button, and the time glared
at him, taunting him to stretch his remaining cigarettes over the remaining time of his shift. 02:17.
More than five hours left.
______________________________________________________
Continued in Part Two!
He pulled the lighter out of his pocket, and brought it up to the cigarette's tip. He flicked the
lighter. A spark. He flicked it again. Another spark, but still no flame. Again. Spark. Again. Spark.
"God damn it," he muttered. He held the lighter up to his ear and shook it. He heard a bit of fuel
slosh around inside. Pushing a harsh breath through his nostrils, he brought the lighter back to the
cigarette's tip. This time, he held the fuel button down a second. He heard it hiss, and then,
satisfied, flicked it again. It worked. The flame fluttered to life, and he sucked on the cigarette to
get it lit.
Dropping the lighter in his pocket, he inhaled sharply, felt the knife of smoke jab into his chest. He
held it there a second, waited for the dull thrust to dissolve into dusty comfort. As he pushed it out,
the smoke tickled his lungs, leaving an itch that needed to be scratched. He obliged, taking another
long drag.
Then a sound. A rustling at his neck. A cold prick on his Adam's apple, then warmth on his throat.
He coughed, and thought maybe it was something in the cigarette. The wet, gurgled sound of his
cough caught him by surprise. In horror, he realized what was happening, suddenly felt the slicing
pain at his throat. It had been cut.
His eyes went wide as something clamped over his mouth. He dimly felt the cigarette crush under
the new pressure and attack his cheek with stinging heat. The pain grew smaller, until it was only a
vague nagging, a thing to worry about later.
He felt something brush his shoulder, and something pounded against his ear. He knew from the
sound more than the remote aching. The world was on its side. He was on the ground. The night
got even darker. Blurry and dark. Focus, damn it! Focus!
He flung his arm wildly back behind him, and caught a hold of something. But before he could do
anything about it, his side flooded with new pain. The knife was there now. The night kept getting
darker, no matter how wide he held his eyes. The knife was in his side again, but it didn't pull out.
The tightening of his tunic told him that the knife was twisting in his side, pulling the wound wider.
He almost couldn't feel the pain anymore. Almost.
He tightened his grip on whatever he had grabbed with his hand. He couldn't see anything but dark
shapes. Trees, he guessed. He squinted. No help. He pulled them wide open. No help. Dark...too dark...
Lowlight froze, hunched over the man for a moment. He had stopped moving. He released his
hand from the man's mouth and shifted his weight, the dead hand losing its grip on his leg. Lowlight
wiped his bloody knife on the man's sleeve and then slid it into the scabbard on his boot, snapping
it into place.
He turned the body onto its back. Lifeless eyes stared upward, fixed on a point just to the left of
Lowlight's face. He searched the body for some kind of identification, knowing that he would find
none.
"Forget it," came Scarlett's whisper from behind Lowlight. "He probably doesn't even have
fingerprints."
Lowlight didn't respond. His searching hands found the cigarettes. He pulled one out and shoved
the pack in a pouch on his thigh.
He gave the sightless eyes a quick scowl. "Not my brand. Ain't war hell?"
He stood up and put the cigarette to his lips. Remembering the trouble the man had had with the
lighter, he held the fuel button down a second, and then a flick conjured the flame. He took a drag
and stuffed the lighter in the same pouch.
Scarlett watched the odd exchange between Lowlight and the corpse. "I think you just said more
to a dead man than you've said to me all night."
He didn't acknowledge her. Now that the struggle was over, the sounds of the night surrounded
him again. Crickets called out, and were answered by nearer ones who had gone silent while
waiting out the struggle. There was a slight breeze toying with the forest canopy above. The
cigarette smoke wisped eastward, then swirled a bit southerly. The trees were deflecting the
breeze in varying directions.
Beyond the trees, the night was weak, too many stars vying for control, a fat moon drowning the
darkness. Too bright. But here, the night was alive. No starlight, no moon, no shadows. Here, the
night was fresh, confident. Ready. Waiting to pounce with all its animal power.
The four men Lowlight and Scarlett had overtaken in the past hour hadn't been victims to human
hands. They had been victims to the animal. It wasn't a knife slicing open a throat. It was the
animal's teeth finding the blood whose scent was so maddeningly obvious. Lowlight led the way,
watching with the animal's eyes. He moved with the animal's silent assurance.
He had learned young how to deal with the animal, learned first-hand how it reacted to human
disposition. Survival requires one thing: Respect. Any other attitude is death. It pities fear at first.
But animals have no sense of honor, and hunger always wins over pity. Cockiness is an insult to
the animal. A flashlight makes a big target. Indifference is the worst attitude. Makes the animal
mad. That's what killed these four men. Ignorance of the animal.
And they were getting weaker the further in Lowlight and Scarlett went. The two nearer to the
perimeter were tougher, had some knowledge that they were on their own. The third one was the
worst. Sitting with his back against a tree. Almost asleep. This last one was just lazy. No thought
for his job, just a bored hope for the end of his quiet shift. Counting his cigarettes, of all things.
"Time?" he asked in a low voice.
Scarlett checked her watch. "Two twenty-one. Ahead of schedule." She watched him continue to
scan their surroundings, exhaling the smoke through his nose. "Those things'll kill you, you know,"
she offered dryly.
In response, he sucked slowly and deliberately on the cigarette, and let a stream of billowing white
flow from his mouth.
She blinked away his gesture. "We have one more man to take care of and two miles to our
target. You want to go in two ways or together?"
He shrugged. "Your command, your call."
"Yes, it is," she said in a reprimanding tone, "but I want to know what you think is best."
He took a last drag from the cigarette and dropped it on the dead man's chest, stamping it out with
his boot. "Together."
"Any particular reason?"
He straightened, looking beyond her. Then he relaxed. She took a glance in the direction he was
looking, but, as expected, saw nothing. She was used to it. He'd been doing that all night. He
seemed to be taking cues from something that eluded her awareness.
"Well?" she prompted.
"If I make it and you don't, I don't plan on anything but a quick kill."
"You think he's not worth any trouble, is that what you're saying?" She considered it. Terminating
the target would be the easiest way out. Mission accomplished, very few questions asked.
"If they really wanted him dead, they would've sent me alone."
Scarlett nodded. He was right. Termination was an option here, but not the objective. One man
could infiltrate this small outpost, squeeze off a well-aimed shot, and head home all within an hour.
And Lowlight would probably be the man they'd send. But they'd handed it to her, meaning a
simple execution wasn't the true goal, though it would be acceptable if necessary. They wanted the
target recovered. They'd even given her free choice of partner, and she chose Lowlight for his
uncanny abilities in the dark. (Or had she chosen him for his expertise with a sniper rifle?)
"Okay," she whispered. "We go together."
Back to Maximillan's Fics!
Back to Authors Page!