CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE WAR

 

 

NO DEAD ON Oak Street.

Cade didn’t know whether that was on account of the cannibals having eaten them, or whether he was in hippie territory and they’d picked them all up to use as fertiliser. Either way, he wasn’t comfortable. He never thought he’d want to see a rotting corpse laying in the street, but now it came to it, he missed them. They were a sign people weren’t around to screw things up.

Cade was missing the dead and resenting the living, and he figured that was more than a little fucked up. So when he saw the coffee shop after the intersection with Divisadero, he figured it was as good a place as any to wash up and rest for the night.

The taps weren’t working, but there was an old cooler behind the counter with bottled water in it, and he managed to get a fair amount of the blood off his hands and face with it, although he had to get rid of his tank top. After that, he checked in the back room.

That was where he found Frank.

Cade didn’t know it was Frank – all there was, as far as he was concerned, was a skeleton that stank to high heaven. He didn’t know it was Frank’s white t-shirt he found in the back of a closet, either. But he was pretty grateful to Frank anyway. Frank being there let him know the place hadn’t been found yet. It meant he was as safe as he was going to be for a few hours. It meant he could get a little sleep, tend to his wounds, think about what he was going to do next.

Frank had a little whisky too, which Cade poured into the holes in his hands and over his chest, letting the alcohol burn into the cuts, saving a little for drinking purposes. It wasn’t exactly standard medical practice, but he figured it was better than just letting the wounds fester, especially after his pierced hands had pulled a few bodies inside out. It was a miracle he hadn’t come down with an infection already.

After he’d cleaned up and washed his wounds as best he could, there wasn’t much else left to do but watch the street. The coffee shop had a second floor, and from there Cade had a good look at anybody who might be coming from Haight-Ashbury. Plus, sitting with a view to the west, he got a good look at the sun going down. Cade wasn’t a man who had much appreciation for natural beauty, but he wasn’t about to turn it away when it got handed to him on a plate.

And it was a hell of a sunset. Boiling pink clouds scudding across a sky filled with fire and brimstone, blood and copper. Cade hadn’t seen a sight like it in forever.

Kind of reminds you of something, don’t it, dog? Sky all on fire and shit.

Cade shook his head. He knew what Fuel-Air was getting at, and there wasn’t any point thinking about it that he could see. That sunset wasn’t anything like an artillery strike. And Cade wasn’t going to think about the artillery strike anyway, so it didn’t much matter if it was.

He looked up at Fuel-Air, who was sitting in a booth on the other side of the room, sipping a frappucino. Half his face was missing, and he only had one arm, plus his guts were hanging out on the table. So the frappucino was slurping out through his ruptured throat and what was left of his guts, pooling on the table and the floor.

He still had Strong’s gold tooth shining out from what was left of his mouth, though. Goddamn fashion plate.

Shit, dog, sorry. I should get myself together. Bringin’ back painful memories and shit, I bet.

Cade spat, and took another sip of whisky.

“Where’d you get the coffee?”

Ways and means, bitch. Fuel-Air grinned, flashing his new diamond. Cade hoped he got sick of that thing fast. It’d been irritating enough on Strong.

Say what you like about Strong, at least he knew enough to stay dead.

Cade could feel the memory pressing on the back of his mind. It wasn’t going away any time soon, but he was damned if he was going to spend time reliving it. He was getting enough of Fuel-Air anyway without remembering the way his voice shook as he huddled next to the humvee.

Shit, dog, you reckon the Captain knows there ain’t no motherfucker out there? Figure he’s just getting his total up for the Commander – shit, is this dumb motherfucker actually in charge?

He didn’t need to hear Sergeant A standing up for the chain of command the way he always did when there was a clusterfuck going on all around him.

There’s a chain of command, Killer. It’s there for a reason. If the Captain says artillery, we go with artillery. The Captain’s the Captain and what he says is what... Jesus, Killer, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? Sit down! Cade, I said sit down...

He sure as hell didn’t need to remember the Captain barking into the radio set, laying down co-ordinates that were maybe a hundred and fifty metres from where they were sat, calling up an artillery strike on some bad intelligence, a damn phantom Chinese whisper that’d made its way up and down the comms. They were close enough to see with the naked eye that there wasn’t any Republican Guard in that field, and even if there had been, Cade could have blown them away without breaking a sweat whether there’d been a squad of trained Marines to back him up or not. But Captain Chaos, in his infinite wisdom, was calling up an artillery strike. A hundred and fifty metres away from them.

Sir, I’m respectfully asking you to rethink this. It’s danger close...

The Lieutenant. Nice guy, at least by Cade’s reckoning. Named Hunter Cragg, if you can believe that. If Cade had seen that name in a movie, he’d have laughed. Hunter Cragg was a good man, though. Hunter Cragg had seen the elephant. Had a lot of combat experience. Ran his men right, gave them shit when they needed it, let it ride when they didn’t, smart enough to know which was which. In another war – say, a war where the people running it had any kind of plan – Lt. Hunter Cragg would have been hailed and respected as the leader of men that he was. They’d have put a medal on him. They’d have made him Captain, maybe Colonel. Maybe General. Hell, maybe President.

Cade figured as long as he was wishing, he’d like a pony.

Hunter Cragg had been stuck in the war he was stuck in, and in that war folks like Dollings got to be Captain and folks like Cragg had to suck it up and be Lieutenant and do what they were told. And if they were told to jump in the shit, they were meant to ask how deep.

Cade took another shot of whisky.

He hated thinking about the Captain most of all.

Danger close? You little pissant, danger close is coward talk! No such thing as danger close for a Marine!

Cragg’s voice came again. Desperate. A strong man begging.

Sir, please, call off the strike... at least delay it while we pull back...

And then that barking, angry, ugly voice of the Captain. Captain Paul Dollings, known in the lower ranks as Captain Chaos, born in the great state of Texas, enjoying his first taste of combat and divorced from any kind of shared reality. A first-class, grade-A dumb-fuck son of a bitch, to put it mildly.

Captain Dollings had never seen real combat in his life. He’d never seen the elephant. And every word he said made that loud and clear.

Coward talk! You had best wake the fuck up, Lieutenant, because the only place you’re headed after this kind of gross insubordination is a military tribunal! I’m going to tear that bar off you myself, do you hear me, you damned coward? You’re finishing out what’s left of this war as a grunt like... who the goddamned hell is that? Jesus! Put that gun down! This is treason! This is...

It wasn’t a happy memory, all in all. But that moment when the Captain had seen Cade raising his assault rifle, had seen the barrel swinging towards him, had looked into Cade’s eyes and read the unmistakeable truth in them – that Cade was going to wipe the Captain out like a stain right there and then, and not because of any personal dislike of the man, or hatred of country or Corps or government or God or any other reason that’d allow the Captain to die a hero...

...but simply because Captain Paul Dollings was a dumb son of a bitch who was in the way and needed to be taken out of it...

...to have the Captain look in his eyes and understand his own worthlessness in the seconds before he died...

...that was a happy memory.

In his booth, Fuel-Air grinned, raising his frappucino.

You the man, dog. The look on that motherfucker’s face. Fuckin’ Kodak, man.

Cade raised his whisky, and nearly smiled. That’d probably been the second-best moment of his life, right after his first kill. Then Fuel-Air ruined it.

Too bad you shot the wrong guy, huh?

Sure, thought Cade. Too bad.

Too bad the Lieutenant had to go and be a goddamned hero by hurling himself in front of the bullets. Cade had liked the Lieutenant. Hunter Cragg was a good man, and he treated his men right. He’d seen the elephant.

Cade didn’t know why he’d step in front of the barrel like that. Just couldn’t figure it.

But he had.

The bullets had pretty much torn Cragg into pieces, which was a hell of a shame for his wife and his little boy. Cragg’d probably have survived it if he’d let himself hold back for a second. He’d probably have killed Cade, but Cade had figured on dying anyway. Probably wouldn’t have been such a loss.

A couple of the bullets managed to find their way through the Lieutenant and smack into the Captain – one in the gut, one in the shoulder and a couple in the leg. None of them hit an artery, but the gutshot would have killed him eventually. Of course, he might have gotten medical aid, and Cade couldn’t have that. There was no way this son of a bitch was going to stay alive one more second if Cade could help it.

It wasn’t just the artillery. It was all the grabbing of souvenirs from the dead and the dying. It was shouting on open comms about how vulnerable they were whenever they were vulnerable, which was often. Mostly, it was that time he shot a five-year old – accidentally-on-purpose – and then wouldn’t medevac him. Just watched him die with a grin on his face, talking about how mistakes were often made in war.

The artillery was something of a last straw.

Cade took another gulp of whiskey and tried to remember what it’d been like before that moment, back when he’d given a damn whether he lived or he died. For the life of him, he couldn’t. Maybe he’d never given a damn. Maybe he’d only pretended.

Maybe he’d only pretended he didn’t want to remember this.

Cade poured more whiskey and thought back, remembering, picturing that look of cold fear in the Captain’s eyes, hearing the way the bark in his voice had turned to the whimpering of a kicked dog.

You can’t do this! I’m a Captain! You can’t do this! Please! PLEASE!

All of a sudden, Paul Dollings had seen the elephant. He was staring the damned elephant right in its eyes.

And the elephant was going to walk right over him without even stopping to blink.

Cade had brought the butt of his weapon down between Dollings’s eyes hard enough to cave the skull in. He figured that was it for him too. Sergeant A had his sidearm drawn and was yelling something. He wasn’t calling Cade ‘Killer’ anymore, and if Sergeant A stopped using a man’s nickname it meant he was pretty mad.

Cade had raised his hands and turned. He saw Sergeant A yelling the words chain of command, over and over again, Fuel-Air behind him staring with his eyes almost popping out, the other men starting to run towards him, weapons drawn.

And then the strike had hit.

It was about a hundred and fifty metres off target. In their direction.

Danger close.

Cade didn’t remember much after that. He remembered reaching with a hand covered in blood and dirt, nothing in his ears but ringing, turning over a body and seeing Fuel-Air with half his face gone and his guts hanging out. No diamond tooth, though, which looking back was a mercy.

After that, all he remembered was waking up in the hospital. He wasn’t the only one out of his unit to survive, but the other survivors hadn’t got a good enough look at what had happened with the Captain and Lieutenant Cragg, and the bodies had been torn into pieces by the shelling. Cade had been lucky to escape with shrapnel and broken bones.

Lucky motherfucker, grinned Fuel-Air. You had guilty written all over you, dog.

Which accounted for the year in the hole, the dishonourable discharge and the promise – delivered to him through unofficial channels – that if Cade ever showed his face again anywhere, he was a dead man. Which suited Cade fine.

All he wanted was somewhere quiet to lay his head. A trailer park in the middle of nowhere, near the coast. Somewhere where they didn’t investigate violent deaths too good, in case he had any problems. Somewhere he could forget himself until he died.

You really thought I was gonna let you forget? Shit, you should be so lucky, bitch.

“Yeah.” Cade was tired. He’d had enough memories, and he’d had enough booze, and he hadn’t seen a damn soul coming down that street. The sun had sank under the horizon, and all that was left now was the night and the dark. Time he got some sleep. He had a lot to do in the morning.

Big day tomorrow, dog. Those hippies sound like some Satan-worshipping motherfuckers, into all kinds of sacrifices and shit – ’least, according to the Pastor. You ready for some shit like that, dog? You think you want to put yourself in the jackpot with some crazy acid-head freaks like that?

Cade shrugged, finishing his whisky and stretching out on the leather of his booth seat.

“Sure.”

Then he slept.