6/8/09
041 – Shapes
“Damn fog. I hate having to use infrared.”
“Oh shut up, Parker. No one cares.”
“I think my helmet’s too small. The goggles give me a headache.”
“Parker! Geez! What part of ‘put a sock in it’ don’t you understand?”
Private O’Malley held his gun with clammy hands as his squadron skirted the edges of their patrol. Major Carter sat alongside him, gun hanging by its strap across his shoulder. Captain Parker was still going on about something and the entire vehicle echoed with the rest of the squadron trying to shut him up.
“Anyone here have a cancer stick?” Parker asked.
“Yes! Give him one and maybe he’ll choke to death!” someone called.
“For shit’s sake, will you all just shut up?” someone else asked desperately.
O’Malley looked at Carter, who was grinning.
“Should we be making this much noise, sir?”
Carter had a cigarette in his mouth and he took it out to answer, letting it dangle from two loose fingers.
“It’s not going to hurt anything.”
“But won’t the Mutts hear us?”
Someone laughed, having overheard O’Malley’s question.
“Mutts? That’s real funny, private.”
Carter took a long drag from his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly through his nose.
“Our engines would alert them anyway,” he said. O’Malley clutched his gun a little tighter.
Parker, who had actually been silent for a full five seconds as he lit up a cigarette, spoke.
“The Mutts aren’t really a threat anyway,” he said, his cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth as he adjusted the strap of his goggles.
“But aren’t we at war with them?”
Parker laughed; a good-natured bark.
“Just out of basic, eh?”
He leaned forward conspiratorially. Smoke blew in O’Malley’s face.
“All that stuff they told you? All that about ‘pressing danger’ and stuff? It’s all bullshit.” He leaned back. “Me?” He thumped himself on the chest. “I’ve been here three tours and I’ve only ever seen one Mutt and it was dead in a laboratory.” He sucked in a lungful of smoke and let it out in a cloud as he laughed. “They’re just trying to scare the folks back home into behaving.”
O’Malley’s fingers tightened even more on his gun as Parker leaned forward again.
“It’s a conspiracy,” the captain whispered.
The rest of the squad, who had apparently been waiting for this moment, all burst into laughter and catcalls.
“Come on, Parker, not this again!”
“No, go ahead. Tell us about the aliens and how Bigfoot was your uncle.”
Parker stabbed the jesters with icy glares and waved his arms in a way that was meant to signal for quiet, but just came off as insane flailing. No one paid him any attention and everyone continued to laugh and toss comments around the truck.
O’Malley looked up at Major Carter, who was exhaling puffs of smoke with his chuckles.
“But, why are we out here if the Mutts aren’t a threat?”
“Weren’t you listening to Parker?”
O’Malley looked at the captain with a confused expression.
“Yes, but I…” His voice dropped down to an ashamed whisper. “I thought he was –“
“Insane?” Carter laughed and clapped the private on the shoulder. “And you’re probably right. But we’re just here to put people’s minds at ease.”
“So what happens if we run into any Mutts?”
“We wo—“
There was a noise like a rock hitting a windshield and the whole vehicle stood on its rear bumper. O’Malley saw Major Carter lean forward with a trickle of blood running down past his ear, then saw the dark wet patch were the back of the major’s head had been. Someone was screaming in pain. O’Malley found that he was sleepy and he closed his eyes.
It was Parker that woke him up.
“Hey, are you all right?”
O’Malley nodded. He wasn’t in the truck anymore. He couldn’t see anything except Parker and fog. He turned his head and beside him was Major Carter. The major’s eyes were closed.
“What—“
“Landmine,” Parker said, looking out into the fog.
“Mutts?”
Parker did look at him then, with a fleeting smile., There was something beeping somewhere.
“You’re really hung up on that idea, aren’t you? No, this area’s been a battleground before and we can’t find every mine ever set. We just got lucky tonight. Rarer than being hit by lightening at this point, you know.”
O’Malley looked back at Major Carter.
“Major—“
“He’ll be all right,” Parker said hurriedly, looking back out at the fog again. “Everybody’s going to be okay. There’s a chopper on its way.” His voice was quiet and he wiped a hand across his mouth.
O’Malley blinked a few times, working his way more fully into consciousness. The beeping continued. Now he recognized it.
“The scope…” he whispered. He couldn’t seem to make his voice any louder.
“Don’t get your shorts in a knot. There are plenty of false alarms. Antelope, mostly.” Parker was still looking out at the fog. Another soldier came to stand next to him and Parker said something softly. O’Malley couldn’t hear what was said, but the other man nodded and pointed into the fog. He had his gun in hand and was peering through his infrared goggles.
O’Malley turned his head.
“See ‘em?” This time he heard Parker’s question.
“Yeah.” The other man’s voice was uneasy.
Even without goggles, O’Malley could see shapes moving in the fog.
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