Click

In the war torn Pacific islands, tensions are brewing. As the platoon makes it's way across the island, something has to give. But what will break first: The men? Or their entire reality?

Author's note: Warnings for the use of graphic imagery and discriminatory language. 


Click

By A.M Carver

“You should have seen it. Ten whole gold teeth, all sitting pretty in the mouth of a Nip.”

Murphy grinned, counting each of the teeth between his calloused fingers.

“Dumb bastard. Small fortune in his mouth, and he tries to run a rifle through the Fifth Marines.”

Slipping the pouch back into his pocket, he patted it three times, once for each of it’s less than willing benefactors. Jose shuddered, despite the jungle’s all-consuming heat. Closing his eyes, he tried to shape the darkness around him into the soft walls of the cinema. Forget the Pacific, he was listening to the two-bit villain of a B reel gangster flick, rolling a cigarette for the short walk home with a girl on his arm. The army issued cigarettes would never compare.

“Credit to him, he almost had me. Damn near took a bayonet to the head before I got him in my sights.”

Raising his rifle, Murphy mocked up the killing shot, squeezing an air trigger as he mouthed the crack of an M1 Carbine.

“Right through the jaw and out the other side. No sir, Tojo weren’t looking too pretty after that. Still, shame I didn’t aim a little up. Could have been another few gold ones in there.”

The Sarge slapped at the mosquitos sucking him dry, throwing a glance back to Murphy.

“Well ain’t that a crying shame.”

“For sure.”

“A crying shame he didn’t run your clod-hopper ass through. Now shut up and fall in, lest Tojo decides to finish the job.”

Jose couldn’t help but grin. The sergeant may have been a hard ass, but he knew how to keep Murphy in line. Most of the time. Quietening down, Murphy fell back a couple steps as they made their way towards the clearing, clipping Jose with the butt of his rifle. He bristled, both shoulders tensing before pushing it out in one cold sigh; he wasn’t going to give that asshole the satisfaction. Not again.

Jose took a deep breath, thinking back to their deployment. ‘Give me three days hard fighting and we’ll have it done’ was the promise given as they’d prepped on deck. Three days and this speck of dirt would be theirs, Amen. By day 26, Jose wasn’t so sure. Fingering the rosary wound round his dog tags, he just hoped the worst was over. The airfield was gone and the ocean was theirs; how long could a thousand starving men hold?

The sarge made a fist and the squad stopped dead. Measuring every breath, each man slowly lowered themselves to the ground, checking their equipment. It was a rare luxury; the usual indication of an enemy presence was the loss of the pointman’s head.

“Pullman, Baker, Luna.”

The shudder returned as Jose moved up the line. Sarge studied the treeline a moment as all three men crouched round, dreading whatever was about to come out of his mouth.

“Possible gunner on the ridge. Baker and Luna, you move on left. Pullman on right. Quick and clean, only fire if you have to. The rest of you, covering fire on my mark. Go.”

Shedding their packs, the three men formed up and struck out into the darkness. He knew that later, the fear would come, cold and overwhelming, wrapping around him in the dirty rags of his blanket as he tried in vain to sleep. But in that moment, Jose was no longer a factor within himself. Jose Luna shed his name on the black sands of the beach. He was far away, an observer to the machine that now ran unquestioning into the jungle; a drilled and vicious tool at the disposal of the USMC.

Cusping the lip of the ridge, he formed up with Baker before rolling into the trench. Cut clean across the brow of the hill, the dark scar marked the edge of the jungle. In the fields beyond, dirty wounds peppered the remains of a sugar cane field, stripped bare by the hunger of the men defending it. They walked the trench, every step a calculation; they’d all seen the booby traps that ate men alive, tumbling fast into a slow death.

“Where the hell are they?”

Jose placed a finger to his lips, indicating towards a crook in the line; likely a gun emplacement.

“On my mark. You take left, I’ll take right. Kill anything that moves.”

Baker nodded.

“Mark.”

In a flurry of movement, the two men rounded the corner, rifles raised.

“Jesus…”

If there had been an emplacement, it was long gone. The nose of a shell had found it’s mark, carving the earth around it like butter. A twisted spear of metal hung limp from the crater’s edge, the possible remains of a rifle. The man who had been holding it was nowhere to be found.

Raising his hands over the cusp, Baker signalled to the rest of the squad to move up. One by one they skirted the edge of the hole, each studying the result of a direct hit and quietly praying it would never be themselves. Jose moved to pull himself out, lest he summoned the very beast which did it. His fingers sunk into the loose dirt around the crater’s edge as Murphy kicked something. The cold lump thudded of his helmet, landing in his hands. Jose stared at the severed foot, pieces of the boot still attached. He yelled, losing his grip as he fell back into the crater, batting the thing away from him.

“Luna! Calm the fuck down.”

The rough hands of Pullman yanked his tangled comrade out, the cold lump falling back into the dirt below.

“It’s okay buddy. Just a scrap of Jap.”

Murphy laughed as they ripped Jose from the trench, dirty hands trembling as he tried to wipe the now cold blood from his fingers.

“Damn Luna! At least I was only taking teeth.”

Jose rounded, shrugging off Pullman as he turned to face Murphy.

“What’s the matter, Spic?” The grin was back. “Gonna shoot me too?”

“That’s enough outta you, Mick.”

The sarge smacked the back of Murphy’s helmet, muttering something about Catholics as Jose’s fingers locked tight around the trigger guard. It was scary how much he hated Murphy. More than the Japs and their artillery. More than the Californian drill sergeant who burned their letters home because they weren’t written in English, or the sounds Cooper made as his lungs filled with blood.  He hated him because in the quiet that followed, he wondered if he was right. Pullman led him away, back towards their packs as the Sargent weighed up their next move.

“C’mon man, fuck Murphy. He’s just trying to bait your biscuit.”

Gathering up his pack, Jose reassembled himself into the man who charged fearless into jungles. Pullman struggled with his straps, a spaghetti mess around his shoulders.

“Can’t believe that Mick prick. Bringing up Cooper like that. Where does he get off?”

The clang of Jose’s helmet hitting the floor made Pullman jump.

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare even mention him to me.”

The words landed like a slap.

“Jesus bud, alright.” He paused a moment, looking him over. “You gotta stop beating yourself up about it.”

Jose’s hands moved to the straps, but whichever way he pulled the tangle ran deeper. Letting loose a growl, he snatched up his rifle, roughly helping Pullman to his feet. They stopped a moment, the noise of the jungle once again enveloping them. Pullman saw the tremble of Jose’s hand, still stained between the fingers.

“I need a favor.”

Pullman looked up, surprised at the seemingly calm request.

“Are you gonna play it cool?”

“In time. But before all that, I need you to keep the sarge busy minute.”

“Oh, God damn it…”

“Listen to me. Murphy crossed a line and he needs to know that. So I’m going to sock that Pendejo whilst you distract the sarge. By the time he knows what hit him, we’ll already be back in formation.”

Pullman shot him a withering look.

“You do realise that’s not going to solve anything?”

Jose grinned, but there was nothing pleasant about it. Pullman looked away; it reminded him too much of Murphy.

“True, but it’s gonna make me one real happy sonofabitch. Now c’mon.”

Tugging Pullman by the shoulder, the two ran to catch up with the squad, now cresting the hill. Falling into formation, fourteen pairs of boots descended on the sugar cane field.

“Find your balls back there, Luna?”

Jose smiled at Murphy as he saw Pullman glance back at them. With a slight nod, he moved forward to query the sarge about a navigational matter.

“What you grinning at, Spic? Find another foot to keep?”

The butt of Private Luna’s rifle struck Murphy’s helmet with a gratifying smack, sending him tumbling into the dark water of the sugar cane field. Sputtering for a moment, Murphy scrambled to his feet, fist clenched as he launched himself at Jose.

“You filthy fucking beaner!”

The fist slammed into Jose’s chin, hot streaks of light dancing before his eyes. Falling back into the mud, he could barely hold Murphy off him, both thrashing like wild animals as blow after blow was thrown.

“Go to hell, you Mick son of a bitch! And take your fucking gold teeth with you!”

Every word he’d ever wanted to say melted in his veins and he pushed, pushed so hard he thought he’d crack the sky. Murphy tumbled backwards into the dark water, his roar piercing the hot quiet of the night. The sergeant was yelling, others were moving to break them apart. Picking himself up, Murphy stumbled sideways, a crooked finger aimed square at Jose, advancing on the Private still scrambling in the mud.

Click.

One hot flash of light, and he was gone. In the darkness, men fell around screaming, clutching fresh wounds. Jose blinked, a thin trickle of blood running past his eyes.

“Mines! Nobody move!”

The Sargent froze in place, eyes wild. Murphy was gone, a gently steaming patch in the muddy water where he’d stood not a moment ago.  Deckland was injured, shaking as he clutched the blossoming patches of red appearing through his shirt. Smith sat dazed on his ass in the cold water. The other men drew quickly into themselves, unwilling to move a muscle lest they summoned another.

“Wilson, check Deckland. Slowly! Where is our entry point?”

The squad looked in every direction at once, but the dark waters of the sugar cane field covered every step. Whichever way they’d come in, it was lost in the panic. Pullman gathered his thoughts, glancing back towards the crater where they’d come from.

“I think it was around here Sargent!”

“Good man! Now everyone, slow as fucking molasses. We retrace our steps. We get out of this field alive. Understood?”

Each man nodded in turn, except for Lopez, still sat in the shin deep water.

“Lopez! Goddamit. Wilson, what’s the situation?”

“Shrapnel Sarge. Doesn’t seem deep, but these two are gonna need a minute. I suggest-“

He fell silent as they all clocked it. The deep thump of distant artillery, low yet unmistakable. No man moved, praying it was for somebody else. Anybody else.

“Incoming!”

The whistle was unmistakable; the shells were for them.

“Move it! Retrace the line, get to the trees!”

The dark of the field evaporated as it struck, ripping mud and material alike free from the earth and showering down in burning rain. Jose scrabbled from the mud as each man ran crazed to the trees, fragments of their world flung violently into the sky. Anything was deadly now, from the grass to the dog tags on their necks. Jose thought only of the safety of the crater as his foot plunged into the muddy water below.

Click.  

In an instant, everything went quiet for Jose. The men rushing by were shadows on his windowsill, smog in a Los Angeles morning. Even the splinters, now biting deep into his feet, seemed far away, tiny in the distance below him. He thought of his Grandma and the bar in San Diego. He thought of Cooper. He thought about a lot of things in not much time at all.

In small pulses, his body came back to him. One nerve at a time he stepped back into his own skin, still mostly in one piece. His hands shook, patting down his leg in slow, deliberate motions. It was only when he felt the hot trickle of his own blood that he was back in the sugar cane field. One foot in the mud. One foot through the rotting lid of an anti-tank mine.

The furious roar of a shell filled his ears, detonating in the mud. He battled the creases in his belly, every bit of training in his head telling him to duck and run as fast as possible. He tasted copper, blood in his mouth from biting his tongue. The men around him sounded distant now, apparitions in his eyeline as they fled the scene.

He was breathing fast. Way too fast. Fighting every screeching instinct, he forced his lungs to slow, counting down each deep breath in his head. He thought back to his brother’s shop, oil stains on his jumpsuit as he counted inventory under his breath. He risked another lungful. This was all it was, just inventory to be counted. Screws, not final moments. He stood as still as he could, counting screws in a sugar cane field.

The explosions were moving further away now, ripping through the dense life of the jungle as they chased his unit back down the hills, to beaches and dugouts. In a few minutes more, it was as if they were never there. The crash of the waves far below made him feel as if he were floating, a lone ghost above the thick life of the sugar cane. Above him, the stars rippled out across a black night’s sky, empty save for the thick sliver of a half-formed moon.

He kept counting. The fact he was still alive was a miracle in itself, but he didn’t feel blessed yet. The cold water of the field flooded his boots, wincing as the loose mud swirled inside open wounds. Still, he did not move.

“Dios, have mercy.” he whispered, desperately willing his leg to stop shaking. “C’mon you bastard!” Each word made him feel sick to his bones, like any misplaced syllable would tip the balance of life and death. “Dios. Dios, please…”

It was like this for a long time; a man alone in the darkness, quietly whispering to god through his boot. The shaking subsided, spreading elsewhere as he stood in soaking clothes. He could feel it, below the surface of the water. The wooden box that had eaten his foot now clung to his ankle, splinter teeth digging deep as he could feel the charge just below his toes.

“Release me.” Jose hissed between his teeth. He wanted more than anything to yank his foot out, desperately trying to pull free without moving much at all. “God fucking dammit!”

He could feel them now, the hard sobs that wanted to rack his chest, his body rejecting all the filth and horror he had swallowed. His body burned, muscles softly shivering as every piece of pent tension shed the raw heat of energy it needed to expel. He was locked, every piece of him held fiercely still through will alone. More than anything, he wanted to lie down. All it would cost him were his legs.

A glint in the moonlight caught his eye. A foreign object, floating on the dark water around him. The sob subsided, replaced by an equally dangerous sensation. Jose couldn’t help it. It was just too damn perfect.

A single gold tooth, floating past his boots.  

Jose slowly clutched his sides. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to laugh at the grim token of his ex-squad mate sailing by, now oddly beautiful in the half light. A single lurch of his chest and he would die, another set of teeth set to float forever in the moonlight.

“You sneaky bastard.” Jose couldn’t help but smile. “Even when you’re dead you’re still trying to fuck me over.” He wanted to laugh and vomit all at once. “Well Murphy, you can go to hell. I’m not gonna stop until I’m out of this godforsaken hole in the ground. And then?” Jose fought back a grim chuckle. “I’m gonna leave you and all your bastard teeth here to rot.”

He spat at the tooth floating free. It span on the surface of the water, bobbing towards the sunken beast on Jose’s foot.  

“Go back to your grave, Pendejo.”

The tooth stopped. Jose stared as it stopped dead on the water, frozen in place. Twitching, it slowly began to turn. Jose bit his tongue, mouth like ash as he watched it begin to reverse its passage, slipping back between the sugarcane shoots.

He heard it then. It was quiet, almost imperceptibly so. Straining to hear it, he pinpointed the sound to the dense thickets just within his eyeline, their thick roots coming to a snarled close just beside his boots. It was a soft gurgling, intermitted with the rasp of harsh air. Something was breathing, even as Jose dared not. A single word dared push past his lips, a desperate need to know what his mind was screaming out.

“Cooper?”

The wheezing stopped. Standing silent in the moonlight, Jose couldn’t comprehend. Cooper was dead, lungs pierced back on the black sands. That was twenty-five days ago, when they’d buried him with the rest. But that sound; Jose was trembling now. He knew it all too well. It was the sound of someone drowning in their own lungs. Jose carefully shook his head clear. Dread and relief rising in his chest, Jose knew that it was someone else from his squad, now suffering the same fate.

“Deckland? That you buddy?”

The gurgling wheeze picked up again, louder now. Jose braced himself; whatever had gotten the poor bastard, it had gotten him good. He couldn’t bring himself to look at whichever one of his team lay blasted in the mud behind the suagrcane. Even if he could move, run to him now with bandages and the sweet release of morphine, it would do no good. With the amount of liquid in his lungs, he would die before he even made it to the treeline. Taking a deep breath, Jose called once more into the darkness.

“It’s okay Deckland! It’s okay man. The squad’s gonna be back for us real soon, you hear?”

Jose gripped the stock of his Carbine, squeezing and releasing as he thought of what to say to the man dying meters away from himself. At best, he had minutes to live. Jose didn’t know how much longer he had himself.

“Deckland! If that’s you man, I need you to move.”

The gurgling ceased as Jose held his breath. A soft splash in the waters beside him; Deckland could hear him.

“Good to have you with us buddy! Now listen up: I’m currently tap dancing on a landmine, so I can’t exactly move. What kind of shape you in? Can you move?”

The thick burble of fluid made Jose want to cover his ears and pretend he was back in the cinema. He had to act fast. Deckland was going to die, but if Jose could get him over, he could free him before he did. The thought made him shudder, but what choice did he have now?

“Splash once for yes. Don’t if you can’t.”

The silence was crushing. All Jose could hear was the slow wheeze of a collapsing lung, painfully aware that any and all noise could be answered with a Japanese bullet from the treeline.

“Keep it together Deckland! You hear me? C’mon big guy…”

Jose almost jumped at the sudden splash, the moist wheeze growing louder as he thrashed.

“It’s okay! It’s okay buddy. We’re gonna fix you up, better than new. Just gotta do what I say, alright?”

The splashing grew quiet as the gasps of a shredded lung rose to take their place.

“I’m going to get you some morphine, okay? The real good shit. Soon as I do, I need you to get over here and get me outta this. Got it?”

The gurgling heave of his comrade was followed by a single splash. Jose took a deep breath, his heart roaring inside his still frame. He might just make it yet. Reaching slowly into his pack, Jose carefully loosened one of the morphine syrettes he’d taken from the dead medic, threading his bayonet through the wire loop pin.

“Good man! Here’s what we gotta do: got a dose of morphine on my bayonet. Gonna move it close to you as I can, then all you got to do is reach out and take it. Clear?”

More splashing. He had got the message. Now came the tricky part.

Carefully as he could, Jose started to slide his free leg across the thick skin of mud below the water. Every movement felt like a mile as Jose willed it away from his body, towards the thick roots of the cane. After an age of inches, his toes pressed up against the side of his boot; he had a brace.

Shifting every aching muscles, long since numb with the effort of stillness, Jose began to twist himself to the left, following the arch of his leg as he shifted his weight across. Any loss of balance, any slip in the loose mud and he knew he’s be atoms, raw mass flung into the air and rained back into the earth. Grimacing, he twisted his aching spine towards his fallen comrade, cursing the betrayal of his body with every soft spasm. With a terrible click, he made his mark, extending the laced rifle out into the sugarcane.

“Behind you Deckland! Just gotta grab it.”

A flutter of hope rose in Jose’s chest as he saw the thicket rustle. In the cold moonlight, the outline of a hand pushed its way up through the grass, towards the blunt relief of morphine. As it emerged from the thicket, Jose froze.

Something was wrong. Deeply wrong. The hand that emerged wasn’t just burned; it was destroyed. The flesh of the fingers was almost all but gone, loose stands peeling from the shredded remains of the palm as it quivered in the half light. The gurgling wheeze intensified as the raw meat of the fingers strained, reaching out towards the morphine. Jose bit his tongue to stop himself from yelling out. The ravaged flesh on the back of its hand almost seemed to be moving.

Reaching the syrette, the mess of a hand twitched, the fingers trying to curl in short, violent spasms. Jose held steady as the thing curled around his bayonet, the precious dosage now secured in his palm. Taking a deep breath, Jose squeezed his eyes shut.

“You got it man. You got it.”

He waited a moment for the hand to retract, feel the weight loose from his rifle as Deckland took the package. It was a long shot. Deckland was fucked up worse than Jose had ever dared to imagine. But unless he did something, they were both going to die in this worthless puddle. Opening both eyes slowly, he peered back into the darkness, his eyes adjusting to the half-light.

The mess that was Deckland’s hand wasn’t reaching for the morphine. Each stripped finger had wound round his bayonet, gripping the spine. He could see the filthy blade sinking into each finger, pushing through the mess of blood and bone as it locked itself to his rifle.

Barley fighting the instinct the flinch, Jose could only watch in dumb silence as it began to grip, curling its fingers into the biting tip of the blade. The slow sounds of something being ruptured made Jose gag, a thick rivulet of blood running across the steel. Steadying himself on his free foot, Jose inched the blade from between its fingers. The hand lurched, two fingers dropping with a sickening splash. The arm fell, joining the severed fingers in the muddy water as it spasmed, writhing in the filth. Clamping his lips together, Jose breathed fast and heavy, trying to stop himself from detonating.

“Deckland! Deckland, I’m sorry!”

His hands shook worse than ever as he realised what he’d done. In blind, stupid panic he’d hurt Deckland even worse, possibly ruining any chance he had of getting out of here alive. He listened intently in the darkness, desperate to know if Deckland could still make it over. The wet gurgle of his breathing had stopped as silence sank back into the field around him. The deep ache of sobs rose again in Jose’s chest as he realised it was over. Deckland had died of shock or of his injuries. He took a rattling breath, carefully pulling his shirt to his mouth as he silently screamed.

It was then that he heard it. Rising from the tangle of the thicket, low and steady. Jose stared wildly into the darkness, head cranking round in measured movements as he desperately searching for the source of the laughter now rising all around him. Like air escaping mud, it echoed from the thicket, filling the night as Jose scrambled desperately for a source. 

“Who’s there?!” Jose cocked the M1, scanning the thick growth around him. The laughter died down, a wet chuckle making him shiver uncontrollably despite his best efforts to remain still. He’d never heard a sound like it. A sudden splash came from the thickets around him, sending ripples across his boots as he fought his instinct to run. Raising the rifle slowly, he twisted his body in inches, carefully pushing the limits of his vision. The pale scraps of flesh burned white in the moonlight, as Jose saw the arm. Worse still, what it was doing.

It was dragging something through the thicket. He squeezed his eyes shut again, counting inventory. He desperately fought off every other memory, rooted to the spot amongst the sugarcane as the thicket beside him trembled with movement. Raising his rifle with painful care, Jose cocked it nice and slow. A shot would be a risk, jolting his body with the recoil. He clenched his teeth together; if it was a Jap, he was dead anyhow. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

Writhing in the moonlight, the ruined face of Murphy was grinned, flesh pulsing and shifting as it slowly sewed itself together. The jaw was snapped, one side of his face slumping away as loose skin fluttered over the tangle of teeth embedded at unnatural angles. The nose was shorn almost off entirely, the cartilage blown open all the way back to the bridge as the wound trailed up through the left eye. Shifting his head in a short, snapping jerk, Murphy’s glazed pupils were staring right into Jose’s. He smiled, a trail of dark liquid leaking from his mouth.

“Private Luna.”

The loose flesh twisted, Murphy pushing his broken face into the wild semblance of a smile. Reaching into the dirt, he collected up his fingers, examining them for a moment.

“Odd kinda trophy to take, Jose.”

With a sudden lurch, he dragged his body forward. The body was mangled, blown apart at every seam and joint. Both legs were missing, shorn off midway down the thigh. The left arm hung limp at the shoulder, twitching loose in the tattered remains of his sleeve. Across his body, Murphy’s skin writhed as if riddled with maggots, bubbling beneath the surface as he dragged himself closer. The rifle shook in Jose’s fingers as he willed himself to move, escape the nightmare that was lurching slowly upon him. The wet gurgle of Murphy’s laugh made his guts churn.

“Nothing to say, Jose?” The grin was back, pushing the curtains of his cheeks apart. “Not gonna make your peace for all this?”

He couldn’t move; he could barely breathe. With a rattling gasp, Murphy raised his arm, slowly pushing it into the mud.

“Just as well. No real sorry gonna fix this.” He snorted, a clump of wet matter dislodging from the hole in his face. His skin was twisting, melding itself together in rough patches. The vague semblance of a nose was reconstituting itself from the mud and torn sinew around it. He drew his lips together and spat. A fragment of tooth fell gracelessly into the dark waters below.

“Doesn’t even matter if you did. Nothing matters now, Jose.”

The screaming impulses of his muscles and mind finally broke free, coughing up a single sentence.

“You’re not real.”

The wheezing mess of Murphy’s laugh made Jose’s finger curl viciously around the trigger, squeezing it dangerously tight. Every inch of his skin crawled. Murphy’s did the same.

“Oh, I’m real as they come boy. Every blasted scrap of me, back from the depths.”

He reached out the remnants of his arm, the loose meat of his fingers curling into a fist. With a twisted jolt of muscle, he extended a finger, aimed squarely at the man trapped before him.

“Hell is real, Jose. Hell is real and it’s worse than anything we could ever have imagined.”

The grim visage of his smile cracked the corners of his mouth, loose bone shifting beneath the flesh. Something crawled beneath his cheek.

“That’s where I’m taking you, Jose. That’s where I’m taking you, tonight.”

Every fibre of Jose’s body was on fire, the burning need to move, shoot, do anything at all to get out. It took every screw in his inventory just to raise the rifle, steadying himself against the roots of the sugarcane once more. The thing before him tumbled forward, loose skin gently dripping into the water below.

“A lot can be forgiven in war, Jose. Whole reason we prayed together, I guess. Men who’ve filled whole cemeteries can still find redemption for the right price. But us?”

It grinned, Murphy’s features swirling like paint across his bones.

“There’s no forgiveness for true Catholic sinners like us Jose. No mercy for the rapists who seek no redemption, traitors or cowards who send believers to die in their place. See, what I did was bad. Lord knows I spent my redemption long before this all started. But you Jose? You killed your own. Bullet through the back of his lungs, let him bleed his last right in front of you. Know what they did to Cain for that?”

His whole mouth was shifting, twisting and rippling as bones wound back into themselves.

“God never let him die.”

The crack of Jose’s rifle tore through the darkness. Murphy’s smile held but a moment, his face constricting as the flesh fell still. All at once he tumbled face first into the muddy water. Jose dared not breathe. He counted each second, eyes locked to the ragged spectre of blood and bone now floating in the dark waters below.

Pulling in the sweet night air into his lungs, Jose devoured each breath, his whole body racked with deep, heaving shakes. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the barrel, coiling around the shivering man, leg still locked in place as he slowly fell silent. He listened. Jose listened harder than he’d ever had to, waiting in numb horror for the rasping to start again.

Minutes passed. The rifle stayed locked on the figure of Murphy, still aimed squarely at the back of his head as he floated towards him. The slightest twitch, the merest hint that he was still somehow alive and Jose would not hesitate to empty every single round into him. The sights shook all over the place as he steadied his breathing, thinking it through.

It wasn’t real. The mine beneath his feet, that was real. The shells falling from the sky were real. They were evil, the worst excesses of cruelty and slaughter that spread like a cancer through the minds of diseased men, great and terrible men who dreamt of death in all it’s forms; but they were real nonetheless. The body before him wasn’t. Couldn’t be. Jose stared at the gnarled corpse floating by his feet. He was in shock. He was in shock from the shells and the death and everything else his mind rejected on this hellish little island. He’d been in shock from the moment the bullet had pierced Cooper’s lung and he’d been marching with it since. He was back in the cinema, only this time watching a horror film that just wouldn’t stop. Jose squeezed his eyes shut. The guilt was eating him alive and his mind was next. Murphy was not back from the dead. He was a corpse. Just another ragged body in a field far from home that Jose had dreamt into a monster. With a sigh cracked clean in half, he tried to push it out of him, purge himself of every shame they’d made him carry. Of every sin he’d taken upon himself.

A bubble broke the surface of the water. The flow reversed. The shivering horror worked its way through Jose as bubble after filthy bubble rose from the depths, the torso beneath him starting to convulse, the foul spark of life reigniting in a broken machine. Jose did not hesitate.

The rifle roared between him and the corpse as each bullet found it’s mark. One clean in the back of the head. Two more to the heart. The body twisted, writhing as each round ripped through its flesh. Jose was screaming. Pushing every bit of fear and revulsion from the fire in his lungs, Jose screamed in every language he knew, the guttural roar of a caged beast. Each knuckle popped white as Jose clutched them round the stock, rifle spent and smoking in his hands. His eyes were wide, wild in the half-light.

The corpse was still twitching.

“Die! Just fucking die!”

Blinking back hot tears, Jose swung the rifle like a club, bringing it down straight into the back of Murphy’s skull. He didn’t care if he set off the beast beneath his feet. In that moment, all he wanted was to see Murphy die before he did. The half-formed bone let loose a crack louder than the rifle shots before it, giving way to the deep pulp inside as the stock made contact. Every breath felt as if it were taken from a great distance, Jose gasping as he pulled the bloodied stock back, clenching the barrel as he rose to strike once more.

The savage howl broke the surface of the water as Murphy lunged from the mud, battered arms flailing wild. The torn flesh of his fingers found their mark, each jagged nail sunk into the back of Jose’s legs. For a moment, they screamed together, a howling roar of fear and triumph. The rifle crashed down again into Murphy’s head, the thick stock inverting the shape of the head as it became wedged between the two plates of exposed bone. Fluid oozed from both eye sockets as it raised himself up, fingers sinking deep into Jose’s flesh as the twisted remains of Murphy’s face pulled close to his own.

“Look at me! Look at me Jose!”

The gurgling gash of mouth flapped loose, revealing the nest of teeth inside.

“A thousand burning years in the blink of an eye! Look at what you’ve done to me!”

A single, lurching sob escaped Jose’s lips as he stared into the remains of the face below, the creature pulling itself ever closer.

“The mess you made of me.” The meat of his lips twitched, the puppet imitation of a smile. He pushed himself right before Jose’s face. “The corpse you made of Cooper...”

Jose closed his eyes, pushing out all the air in his lungs. He was right. Whatever it was clinging it’s rotting body to his, it was right. He could blame the war, the Japs or his mother for ever being born, but the truth was simple enough. It was his bullet that had passed through Cooper’s back. A shot fired in wild anger, finding the wrong mark as it wedged itself deep in the nineteen-year old’s lungs. He remembered trying to explain it, desperately telling the kid dying in front of him that it was an accident and begging for forgiveness even as Cooper’s lungs started to fill. He shouldn’t have been there. None of them should have been here, inventing new and terrible ways to kill each other over bare rock in the middle of a wide sea. Men were never supposed to come here Jose realised; this place was for beasts and the corpses which fed them. Best left to animals like Murphy. Left here to die so that the world never had to bear their evils. A sob wracked his chest as he knew what he had to do.

“I’m sorry, Cooper.”

He lifted his foot.

Click.

***************************************************************************

“Hey, Pullman!”

The young man turned, stubbing out another cigarette. Hadn’t stopped since he got back.

“Pullman!”

Rising from the foxhole, Pullman slung the rifle over his shoulder, calling back.

“What?”

A kid, red in the face from running, pulled up beside him, leaning on the sandbags as he caught his breath.

“They found him alive! Shot to shit, but they found him!”

Pullman rounded, grabbing the kid by his shoulders as his grip became painfully tight.

“Where is he?”

The kid recoiled, pulling hard to break free of Pullman’s grip.

“Jesus, cool it buddy. We found him near the treeline. Stretcher should be near medical.”

Like that, he was gone, running wildly towards the medical tent as the kid shrugged, lighting up a cigarette of his own. Pullman bounded through the camp, dodging each defensive emplacement as he made his way to the tent. A few meters out, he saw them. Two stretcher bearers carrying Jose between them. His heart soared.

“Jose!”

He skidded to a stop beside the stretcher as his smile fell. Jose’s legs were thickly wrapped with bandage, spots of red blooming through the white cotton. But what stopped Pullman dead were his eyes. Once so set and noble, they had retreated into his skull, dark and sunken despite their unbreaking stare.

“Jose! What happened?”

The medic ushered him aside, his colleague lifting the khaki flap. Jose’s eyes darted round, finding Pullman as he tried to raise a shaking finger.

“Move, soldier. This man needs treatment.”

Barley audible, Jose spoke in a rasping whisper, eyes locked on Pullman.

“It’s real.”

Pullman leaned close to listen, dodging the hands of the stretcher bearer as Jose was pulled inside.

“Hell is real, Pullman. Hell is real and Murphy is waiting for me there.”

They ushered him in, the tent flap falling closed as Pullman silently watched. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a cigarette, lighting it as he stared out into the jungle beyond.