THE DEVIL UNTIL THE CREDITS ROLL

Weston Ochse

(Written while deployed to Afghanistan)

The silence was extraordinary as I stared into the darkness, waiting, knowing it would come for us. Like a nightmare scrambling across the desert floor, it would seethe into our midst. One or more of us would die tonight. I knew this better than the others. This was the second time I’d come to the monster. After the first time, I’d promised myself I’d never do it again and not just because the monster said the next time I’d die. There was something about the unworldly creature that brought out the primordial within me, cellular memories that evoked things in the darkness that needed to stay outside the fire, creatures whose existence preceded the idea of evil but nonetheless influenced humanity’s idea of it.

“And you’re sure it’s up there?” Watson’s dark shape next to me whispered. The sound of his boots scooting on the grit sliced at the Afghanistan night.

I tried to control my breathing. Each sound was like a rifle shot to my nerves. The monster would come when it wanted, but Watson couldn’t wait. We were all Special Forces, but Watson had also been a Ranger, deploying six times in support of the advanced infantry force, and he was incapable of acknowledging that there was something he couldn’t defeat with technique, courage, and steel. So he kept scanning the cave entrance with his night-vision, even though he’d been told the monster wouldn’t show up in them.

To be honest, none of them really believed in the existence of monsters. I could tell they were reconciled that the entire mission was a lark and we’d be drinking scotch back on FOB Salerno in six hours. But I knew better and I felt more than a little guilt in bringing these five men to this otherwise nondescript cave in the Tora Bora Mountains.

The butt of Wisnewski’s HK416 scraped the ground ever so slightly as he shifted, causing me to spin to the sound.

“This is bullshit,” the big Polack grumbled.

“Keep your game face on,” I ordered, my voice barely audible. I understood their doubt. I’d had it on my first mission to the cave three years ago. We’d been attacked and forced into the mountains, where a man pulling mules carrying scrap metal told us a terrified story of a creature living in the mountains who killed Taliban. What the old Khyber Pass peddler couldn’t have known was the creature killed everyone. The Taliban were just its most recent victims.

I willed the silence to descend once again. The only way I’d hear it coming would be if everyone would shut the fuck up.

But Wisnewski wanted to be heard and simpered, “I still say this is bullshit.”

Segrest shifted slightly on the other side of him.

Beside him sat Perez and then Dobler, the Agency man we’d picked up from the slick ten klicks north. The newcomer had made a career studying the Nightbreed. The incident in Midian hadn’t gone unnoticed and eventually an analyst buried in the labyrinth of cubicles in America’s secret palace latched on to it. Since then, Dobler had been peeling back the onion, trying to determine everything he could about the mysterious group. So this opportunity wasn’t something he could pass up, especially when my after-action report hit his desk last year.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO—SOJTF DETACHMENT

SPECIAL OPERATIONS JOINT TASK FORCE—AFGHANISTAN:

AFTER ACTION REPORT FOR MISSION 32-0073-12

EXSUM: ODA 32 ENCOUNTERED RESISTANCE ALONG ROUTE YELLOW OF COMPANY-SIZED ELEMENT OF INS. DISENGAGED PRIOR TO CONTACTING OVERWHELMING FORCE. UNABLE TO MAKE ALTERNATE ROUTES. E&E TOOK ODA 32 ALONG TORA BORA BACKBONE WHERE ADDITIONAL HOSTILITIES OCCURRED, INVOLVING NON-COMBATANT CREATURE OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. MEDIVAC REMOVED THREE AC KIA, ONE KIA AND ONE AC WIA. MSG JOHN HERSHEY GILLAM, ODA 32, SOJTF-A, SOLE SURVIVOR.

AAR 32-0073-12 IS CLASSIFIED XX XX X XXX.

NON-COMBATANT CREATURE OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN.

After both the debriefer and I had signed nondisclosure agreements, three Army colonels and a Navy SEAL lieutenant commander at Camp Integrity had argued for hours about the after-action report, finally settling on that term. They’d tried MONSTER, BOOGYMAN, FIEND, DEVIL, even dallying with UNIDENTIFIED CREATURE. They’d finally settled on NCCOUO, afraid that any other reference might bring undue attention to what otherwise had been a disastrous mission.

“Disastrous.”

That was a word to describe it, I supposed.

In the end, I’d been forced to fight for my life, my thumbs pressing through the pupils of my best friend’s eyes as the Non-Combatant Creature of Unknown Origin laughed and giggled and danced, using the entrails of my other two soldiers as party favors for his own celebration. Ben had almost strangled me before I was finally able to kill him. I’d pressed so hard I’d bruised the soft parts of my hand between thumb and forefinger, beating it against Ben’s ocular bone as my digits sought to clear a deep enough path so I could skull-fuck him. There were times when I could hear the sound of my penis moving in and out of his head with sickening clarity.

That hadn’t made it into the report. But I had tried to explain things. I’d tried to tell them what had really happened, but the psychologists got involved and began making excuses for me that I never could have made on my own. So I let them. I got some R&R and blew off some steam. Then I came back, ready to become who I once was until Dobler contacted me and had to remind me of who I’d been.

I stilled my mind. I closed my eyes and heightened my hearing. I felt it.

Any moment now.

My eyes shot open as a feeling descended upon me. A fear, born when the earth was young, enveloped me in a hollow grasp. I breathed but my breath went nowhere, sucked into the void growing inside of me.

Perez began to weep.

I wanted to do the same, but choked back my emotion.

“You come again,” said a voice as close to my ear as the French hooker had been in Morocco when I was on R&R.

I dared not look. I didn’t have to. A misshapen face materialized next to me, lingering like the smoke from a cigar before it dissolved.

Watson began to giggle. The slap of flesh on flesh came faster and faster as he unmistakably masturbated in the dark, his grunts of pleasure coming with metronomic frequency.

“We have a mission.” My throaty rasp was calmer than I believed it could be.

“Children playing at war. Finger guns. Bang. Bang,” the monster said, words surging in disjointed whispers.

Segrest whimpered. “Wha-at is ggg-going on, momma?”

I’d told them not to show fear. I’d explained how the monster fed on it. They hadn’t listened.

Segrest screamed.

I rolled over and placed a hand over his mouth. I watched the starlight reflect in his feverish and darting eyes. “STFU, soldier.” I glared at him, trying to explain with a look that Segrest needed to shut up to save himself, but he was staring at something not there.

The monster sighed. “You bring children to me.”

My eyes watered as emotions seeped past, memories of my youngest sister dead in a post-prom car accident, my old friend Baker gut-shot and dying in my arms, the crying of my own sons on the telephone after my wife had stolen them away to some Montana farm, and Ben screaming at me to stop.

“We are all children to you, Rook,” I managed to say, biting back the memories the monster sucked free.

Umbra, penumbra, and antumbra, the three distinct parts of shadow, coalesced into a dark figure sitting next to me. A single horn rose from its head like a rhinoceros’s. I knew better than to look directly at the monster, instead keeping it in my peripheral vision.

“One of you will die tonight,” it said.

“Then take me, but first let me tell you why I came.”

I felt it regarding me. I was almost positive it couldn’t read my mind, but I hid the truth behind memories, knowing it would relish these first.

“Tell me what it is that makes you want to die.”

I paused, knowing that everything hinged on my next words. Then I said it, the culmination of too many ideas and my own desire to finally discover the truth. “We’ve found another of you and we want you to kill it.”

The words had the desired effect.

Within minutes the monster had gathered us in his cave. Lined up as though we were the guests of honor at an execution, we were pitiful representations of humanity. I was the least affected. Still, I trembled a little, knowing that things could get much worse, and absolutely understanding that no one would be able to stop the runaway train called Rook if we let him get going.

Watson still pulled at himself, his face cut into a permanent leer.

Wisnewski’s eyes fluttered, caught in the memories of a deed he hadn’t told anyone about, telling us the tale over and over in a dead man’s monotone. “And I took her face in my hand and held it before I shoved it into the dirt and then I ripped free her clothes and then I…”

Segrest shook, urine blackening his pants, the stench the only recognizable aroma in the monster’s lair besides dead and rotting flesh.

Perez gripped his crucifix in his right hand so tightly his skin bled. He recited “Our Father”s and “Hail Mary”s in barely audible whispers, interspersing them with profanity and explicit descriptions of what he wanted to do with the holy mother, each utterance making him speak faster, trying to rid himself of the monster’s terrible influence.

Dobler’s reaction was the opposite of everyone else’s. His face was fat with anger, red cheeks, creased forehead, and rippling sneer. Hatred bled from his eyes as his hands clenched over and over, invisibly strangling infants, the weak, and the infirm.

What I could see of the oval-shaped cave was lit by a small lantern that sat on a slat of wood balanced across several smaller rocks. From the ceiling hung several hundred heads, each one another version of the previous one—black hair, Caucasian features, head scarf, and an oval gash of terror for a mouth. Several Afghan rugs lay on the floor, creating a livable space. Their rich reds and blues made the room less a cave and more a parlor. A stack of pillows rested against one wall, and it was upon these Rook now reclined. The only piece of clothing he wore was a kilt, tartaned in red and blues. His body was long and well muscled. If a man hadn’t seen his head, they might mistake him for tall lean human. But the horn atop his overly large and misshapen skull relegated him past the category of circus freak, firmly into the encyclopedia of monsters. Then there was the color of his skin. A dead color. The unmistakable gray of a cadaver.

Dobler was the expert. He’d studied the Nightbreed and had shared his doctoral dissertation on the subject of Midian, the last place they’d gathered in any strength. The CIA agent believed them to be Fomorian, the race that preceded humans in Ireland. I’d been forced to read passages of the scholarly supposition, and remembered a translation from an ancient Irish tome called The Book of the Dun Cow: “with the body of a man and the head of a goat, they were terrible in their beauty.” Whatever Dobler thought they were, he’d have a chance to find out for real this night.

Rook wore spectacles and thumbed a well-worn book, its cover a glossy leather the color of old blood. He occasionally stared at the soldiers, who stood in a perfect line, seemingly incapable of shooting him, even though their weapons were loaded and at hand.

He let his finger follow a line in the book, then put it back down. “They called Byron ‘sublime.’ I like that word. Do you like it, Gillam?”

“I don’t know that word,” I said.

“The Greek poet Longinus compared it to establishing ecstasy. I know you understand that word. I do think that stuffy old Edmund Burke said it the best, however. ‘Sublime is whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger.… Whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror.’ Am I not sublime? Am I not operating in a manner analogous to terror?”

I’d forgotten how much Rook loved to talk. “You are indeed sublime,” I said, agreeing like anyone would to a preposterous question posed by a monster.

He smiled happily to himself, then put down the book. “So tell me of this other monster.”

“He calls himself Jupiter.”

Rook nodded. “I remember an old fat piece of sewage called Jupiter. I cut him up and left him to die in Midian.”

“He’s been sewn back together.”

The idea of it startled Rook. “He has? Sewn back together, you say?”

I nodded, then leaned over and backhanded Watson across the face. When he didn’t stop jacking off, I did it twice more. Watson let go of himself and brought his hands to his cheeks.

“Leave it the fuck alone,” I said, then added, “I think you broke it anyway.”

My activity caused the others to begin returning to themselves. The deleterious effect of our fear was still there, but it no longer seemed to hold them so terribly—not exactly a switch being turned off, but a rheostat being turned down.

“I warned you not to return,” Rook said.

“I never wanted to.” I shrugged and broke from the line. I carried an AK and laid it on the floor next to where I squatted. “But this other monster, this Jupiter, he’s fighting us, supporting the Taliban.”

“You know the same thing’s going to happen again.” It was a statement rather than a question.

I sighed at the memory of what had happened before. “We’re prepared,” I said. What I didn’t tell him was that I was prepared, because as much as I wanted to think I was, I wasn’t. Shit was starting to come back to me I’d thought long buried. My façade of being the good guy was tarnishing by the second.

Rook didn’t seem to notice my indecision. Instead, he took one look at the group and let his head roll back as he laughed. “You’re like a bunch of kids waiting for the principal to eat them. You’re not ready. You’re not even close.” Suddenly Rook was no longer reclining and was instead standing eyeball-to-eyeball with Dobler. “And what is it with this one? He wants to kill me so badly I can taste it.” He licked the side of Dobler’s face with a tongue that looked like it was made from twelve inches of green and red velvet. “Delicious.”

“He’s a born-again Christian. He thinks your kind are all devils.”

“He’s probably right,” Rook said, putting his arm around Dobler’s head and petting it. “I’m the devil until the credits roll, then everyone scrambles to see who I really am.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Dobler said.

“Doesn’t it? Think about it, my little Jesus freak.”

“Which one of us is it going to be?” I asked.

Rook gave me the same look as a man appraising a new hooker. “We’ll see how you all function, then I’ll decide. So how does this work?”

“What do you mean?” Dobler asked.

Rook ignored the CIA man’s question and asked one in return. “What’s your plan? How am I going to kill old Jupiter?”

“What do you mean?” Dobler asked again.

Rook made a disappointed face and wagged his finger. “That’s not good. I counted two ‘what do you mean’s and one ‘that doesn’t make any sense.’ You’re going to have to pay a penalty for that.”

Dobler’s eyes went wild. “What? What penalty?”

“A penalty. If you’re not going to open your mind and pay attention there are sublime penalties that have to be paid.” Rook glanced at me and grinned. “And God, but don’t I love the sublime.” Then he opened his mouth and clamped down on Dobler’s left arm. Rook shook his head and twisted, coming away with a huge chunk of the CIA man’s triceps, spraying blood across the cave.

Dobler screamed and screamed and fell to his knees. He stared at the blood gushing from his arm, unable to do anything.

Segrest rushed over to him. Kicking Dobler in the chin to get him down, Segrest pushed a knee on the left shoulder joint to slow the blood, then ripped Dobler’s shirt free. It took a few moments, then he had a pressure bandage fashioned and the arm in a sling.

No one said a thing.

I’d seen it before. I’m not sure if it was a game or a test, but the monster had his way of doing things.

Perez had scooted beside me. He held his HK416 in a white-knuckled grip, the working end pointing ever so slightly toward Rook, while his crucifix dangled from his hand.

Wisnewski and Watson stood together, whispering to each other on the other side of the entrance. I hoped they weren’t going to try anything. The plan was still in place. In fact, if Dobler could somehow keep from being eaten, we might just get somewhere.

Segrest splashed water on Dobler’s face, waking him up. Then he worked his way back to me. By the time he was standing next to me, he was holding a 9mm pistol down in front of him, his left hand covering it.

Dobler seemed to collect himself, then glared at Rook. I have to give the CIA guy credit. He wasn’t a shrinking violet.

“Where were we?” Rook asked, picking his teeth with what looked like a piece of bone he’d plucked from the floor.

“I was about to tell you the plan.” Aided by his clenched teeth, Dobler kept his voice even.

“By all means. Tell me. How are you going to have me kill Jupiter?”

Dobler blinked for a moment. For a second I was worried he wasn’t going to be able to deliver. Then he said, “Sunlight.”

Rook smiled. With the blood staining the outside of his mouth, it was a terrible thing. “But that would kill me too. What do you think I’m going to do? Lead him outside for a chat? Me and Jupiter holding hands and walking through flower-strewn fields?” He glanced at me, then stopped as if he could read my mind. “But you knew this part, didn’t you. It’s how you escaped the first time. It’s why I didn’t go after you.”

Hodges’s and Mixon’s bodies had already been near the entrance, their necks twisted, hearts eaten out of their chests, stomachs empty bowls of flesh. O’Bryant had been next. At sunrise, I’d knocked Rook free of where he was chewing on O’Bryant and had dragged my last soldier outside.

“How’d you explain to them that you weren’t injured?” Rook asked. Everyone turned to me, making Rook realize. “Oh, you were injured. Of course you would be. You’d have to be, now wouldn’t you? How were you injured, Gillam?”

SOJTF INVESTIGATION EXRACT FOR MISSION: 32-0073-12

EXTRACT: MSG GILLAM’S CONTUSIONS AND LIGAMENT TEARS ARE CONSISTENT WITH SEL-DEFENSE AND EVIDENCE OF EXTREME COMBAT. A 9MM BULLET MATCHING THE MANUFACTURER OF ROUNDS ISSUED TO HIS TEAM WAS REMOVED FROM HIS LEFT ARM. BALLISTIC STRIATIONS DO NOT MATCH ANY OF THE RECOVERED WEAPONS, HOWEVER MANY OF THESE SAME ROUNDS HAVE BEEN REPORTEDLY USED BY ENEMY FIGHTERS, PURPORTEDLY STOLEN DURING SHIPMENT FROM PAKISTAN TO AFGHANISTAN. RECOMMEND CLOSE CASE ON ISSUE AND RESCIND DUSTWUN ON SFC BENJAMIN HAYNES. HIS BODY HAS BEEN DEEMED UNRECOVERABLE BASED ON MSG GILLAM’S REPORTS.

AAR 32-0073-12 IS CLASSIFIED XX XX X XXX.

“I was shot.”

If Rook had been drinking he would have snorted. “And who shot you?”

“You shot me,” I said flatly. It had been too hard to explain otherwise. It was no hard thing to push the barrel into my own arm and pull the trigger. God knew I’d tried to shoot myself enough times.

Rook raised his eyebrows. “Since when do Nightbreed need guns?”

Dobler glared at me. He was good at glaring. “I’ve always had a problem with that part of your story,” he said, clearly trying to master a voice that was right on the edge of losing it.

“Shut up, Dobler, and get on with it,” I said. Instead of standing, I shifted to a knee and folded my hands across it.

Perez whispered to me, his eyes wild as he took in the monster. “I can shoot him, boss. It would be too easy.”

I shrugged. Why not? It wasn’t like he’d do any damage. “Sure. Go ahead,” I said.

Perez giggled as he opened up, firing three-round bursts into Rook, filling the cave with violently assaultive percussive noise that caused all of us to cover our ears. I closed my eyes as rock chips and pieces of pillow flew through the air. When his magazine ran out, Perez scrambled to load another one.

I opened my eyes and removed my hands from my ears. I worked my jaw to clear my head of the sound.

Rook laughed as he danced in the falling goose down.

“Seriously?” Dobler said, getting to his feet and staggering over toward Perez. “Why even try and shoot him, Perez—is that your name? We have this under control.”

I looked at Dobler and knew otherwise. The monster had all of the control. The fact that Dobler thought he had the power to do anything just proved he had no idea what was going on. Maybe if we’d been outside we’d have stood a chance. Maybe. But here? In his cave … his lair? I didn’t think so.

Dobler must have sensed my thoughts, because he rounded on me. “What? Now you have a comment?”

“Easy, Dobler,” I said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood and aren’t used to this sort of thing.”

“Used to it?” he asked as his voice rose to breaking. “Like you’re used to it? Does Special Forces have a new monster training ground I’m not aware of?”

I put my hand out. “Easy, man. This isn’t done yet. We can still do what we came here to do. Stay on mission.”

Dobler’s eyes cleared for a moment. He licked his lips as his gaze darted momentarily to his arm. His movement had gotten it bleeding again, but he made no move to attend to it. Instead, he nodded. “Okay. All right.” He turned back toward Rook. “You wanted to know how we’re going to help you kill Jupiter. I said sunlight. That’s true. But we have a suit for you. One which will protect you.”

Rook rapped on his horn with the knuckles of his right hand. “Will it fit this?”

Dobler nodded. “Not sure if we have the dimensions right. We had to base it on Gillam’s memory. But I’m pretty sure it will.”

I was only half paying attention. I gestured for Perez to get behind me. Although the rounds hadn’t hurt the monster, he didn’t seem pleased at the destruction of his pillows.

“Watson and Wisnewski, check outside to make sure we’re not going to have any unplanned guests.” I glanced at them, and flicked toward the exit with my gaze. If we could get them out, it would be a start.

But Rook seemed ready. Just as the pair were beginning to move, he stepped into their path.

They raised their weapons, then looked at me.

“Come on, Rook. Let them do their job,” I said.

He nodded, but didn’t move out of their way.

Wisnewski raised his weapon and tried to slam the butt into Rook’s face. The monster caught it, which seemed to be what Wisnewski wanted. While Rook’s hands were engaged, the big Polack pulled free his blade from his thigh sheath and sawed it across Rook’s unprotected stomach. Skin immediately peeled free, revealing a gash so deep I could have slid my hands inside.

But there was no blood.

Wisnewski hesitated, unsure what to do next … which was his undoing.

Rook became smoke and swirled around his attacker. Wisnewski spun too, trying to keep the bare hint of Rook’s figure in front of him, but he couldn’t move fast enough. Suddenly, he stopped, his body rigid. When Rook re-formed behind his target, he was once again whole and his fingers were inside the flesh of Wisnewski’s back, wrapped around his spine.

Wisnewski tried to move, but Rook clamped down with his fist. The big Polack’s eyes popped and his face showed the strain he was taking from the pain. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a whine.

Rook bit down on the back of the soldier’s head and peeled back a piece of hair-covered skin. Wisnewski’s eyes rolled back in his head and he began to scream, but Rook shoved him to the floor and pressed his face into the floor with a foot on the back of his head. The monster held him there as he pulled the flap of skin from his teeth and regarded it. “I’m not your cliché,” he said, his voice wrought with sadness. He took a bite of the skin and chewed thoughtfully. “I’m not a creature from your stories. The idea that I exist, and therefore I am evil is a construct. If I live in a cave or under a bridge or in a mountaintop castle, it’s because I don’t want to be a part of your humanity. It’s not because you’re afraid of me. It’s because I’m afraid of you.”

“But that’s ridiculous.” Dobler was pale as he watched Rook chew.

“Is it? Did I come chasing after you or was it you who came after me? And for what? To weaponize me?”

Dobler gulped. “Maybe this is a mistake.” He glanced at me. “Maybe we shouldn’t be here.” He gulped again. His voice became that of a child’s. “Can we go now, Gillam?”

I shook my head slowly. I hadn’t wanted to come here. I’d known how it was going to turn out.

“You asked the wrong person,” Rook said. “Gillam is a far worse monster than me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. In the realm of monstrous I was an acolyte compared to Rook.

Rook giggled and tore another piece of skin free. “When a monster is a monster he’s being true to his nature. When a human is a monster it’s far worse.”

I wished Rook would shut up. I think it was all the time he spent alone. It made him want to talk. I opened my mouth to say something, but Rook interrupted, jerking Wisnewski’s spine free with a mighty heave. He removed his foot from the man’s head and stepped forward, holding the long meaty piece out for inspection. He regarded the spine for a moment, then tossed it at Dobler, who automatically caught it in his arms, before dropping it. Then Dobler bent over and retched.

“You’re not a good person, Gillam,” Rook said, licking his hand clean. “You try and be. You pretend to be. But you have thoughts, don’t you? You have impulses. Crazy impulses. You see something and you want to do something bad to it. But then you don’t and you pretend that everyone thinks the same things and that you’re a good person for showing restraint. But you’re not a good person, Gillam. You’re not good at all. At least not how these people think. At least not how poor Ben thinks.” At this last, he pointed toward the ceiling, to a spot where a single head hung, different from the others. This one had no cloth on its head. It had no beard. On its neck was tattooed A/9/2, Ben’s first unit in Somalia.

I was shocked to see it. More shocked at the memory it evoked. Then of course I’d told everyone that Ben had been killed by an IED. No trace left. Nothing. Not even a piece of skin to test for DNA. And the others knew it too. They’d read the AAR. They knew my story.

Perez was the first to attack, but the sound of his knife sliding free was loud and gave me plenty of time to put my pistol beneath his chin and fire three times.

Segrest lifted his weapon and I brought mine around at the same time. I stepped backward and we found ourselves barrel-to-barrel. His eyes widened. Then I shifted slightly and pulled the trigger, catching him in the forehead. I threw myself down in case he fired, but he was unable to get a shot off.

“GILLAM!” Dobler shouted. “STOP!”

I landed next to Segrest. His dead eyes accused me. We’d drunk together. We’d killed together. We’d been friends. But I’d never really cared for him. I’d just played the part I was supposed to, doing the things I was supposed to do to get along. Cooperate to graduate, as they say.

Monique had looked at me the same way after she’d died. I’d told her I loved her. I told her I’d take her home with me. I told her I wouldn’t squeeze so hard. It was her fault she’d believed all of my lies. Then as I took her from behind, I’d closed my eyes and remembered Ben, doing the same thing to his face after he’d died.

I spied Watson as he aimed at me. I used Segrest’s body as cover and fired from the ground. I scored two hits center mass, but not before he was able to hit me three times in the back. I rolled over and groaned. The pain sent me away.…

I don’t know how long I was out, but I awoke to hear Rook saying, “‘Sublime’ is a word I’ve discovered lately. It’s a good word. Underused, I think.”

Then blackness took me again.

I tumbled to a memory of me and Ben sitting and watching the television, some Armed Forces Network replay of a hero movie.

Ben asked, “Who would play you in the movie of your life, man?”

I remember wondering. I hated all the hero actors. I thought they were all a little too cocky and sure of themselves. I couldn’t understand why people cheered for them. I was always ultimately disappointed when they survived to the end. I wondered why there were no movies where the bad guy survived.

“What makes you think you’re a good guy?” I remember asking.

“Because I fight for the winning side,” he said, laughing, completely unaware of the stupid simplicity of his answer.

Dobler was sputtering like a baby from somewhere off to my right when I next came to. “We have him in a box. We … we’re studying him.”

“Did he tell you what I did to him?” Rook asked.

I couldn’t hear the answer, but I heard Rook respond, “I thought as much. So this was all a ruse? What would you have done if I’d come?”

Dobler mumbled something.

“Oh, you mean you thought I’d actually fall for it? What made you think that?”

I couldn’t hear the answer again. I levered myself up, using Segrest’s face for balance. I wanted to hear. I wanted to see Dobler as he was talking.

I saw him hanging from the ceiling, his hands tied and hooked. His skin was gone—completely absent from where it was supposed to be. How Rook had done it without killing Dobler I hadn’t a clue, but I wanted to make sure and ask. It looked cool.

I straightened and arched my back. My shoulders felt tight so I rotated them.

“Why don’t you answer him, Dobler? Why don’t you tell Rook what I said?”

“He—he said you’d fall for it hook, line, and sinker.”

Rook looked at me with those same appraising eyes he’d given me earlier.

This time I returned his gaze. “Sublime, isn’t it?” It was a statement rather than a question.

Rook grinned. “Yes it is. Very sublime.”

Dobler shook once, his body rattling savagely, then died.

Soldiers do things in war. Murder changes them. They can become monsters, torturing, raping, and collecting body parts as the animal part is begged to the surface. But this is only temporary. When it’s over, we return home to a life where the only raised fists are at the television or against a bad driver. I used to believe that these things I did were like those things, an act of war meant to be left in the war. A souvenir meant to be left behind.

Rook had said it earlier: “I’m the devil until the credits roll, then everyone scrambles to see who I really am.” It was the most sublime thing I’d ever heard and informed my inner self who I really was better than a thousand nights staring into the barrel of my gun.

Sometimes the devil plays himself, but most often it’s someone else, someone you least expect, or someone you don’t want to expect.

Sunlight suddenly streamed into the cave’s opening like laser beams from an angry god. I took one look then stepped into the blinding day, and in that moment I knew who I really was.

My skin popped and sizzled.

My hair flamed like Johnny Blaze.

My ears blackened and burst.

I watched my hands turn to ash.

In the movie of my life I’d played the devil, but when the credits rolled, it was me all along … John Hershey Gillam, son of Marguerite and Frank Gillam, brother of Peter and Susan, soldier, warrior, believer in the cause, devil in disguise, Nightbreed in training … it was me.

It was me.

I stepped back inside the cave, glancing at Ben’s head hanging with the others from the ceiling. Shadows lived where his eyes had been. He’d given me good memories all the way to the end.

Rook regarded me with a sad smile.

My hands re-formed.

And the credits rolled.