SNAFU: Heroes: An Anthology of Military Horror

Batista rolled his eyes. “Maricone. Where the fuck you been? These are tarantula wasps. Sometimes call them tarantula hawks.” Leon made flying gestures with his arms. “Big fucking spiders. Big fucking wasps.”

“Yeah,” Andy repeated, “big fucking wasps. And last night? Were those tarantula hawks?”

Leon Batista laughed and shook his head. He choked on a mouthful of tobacco juice and convulsed before he was able to spit it out.

“Last night wasps? Those were Rift wasps. Those were gigantesco. Like airplanes, no? You get bit by them, not like the real ones. You’ll walk around thinking you okay, then your stomach gets bigger and bigger and—”

Andy nodded. So if the wasps were increased in size because of the Rift, then he could only imagine how large the tarantulas had to be. He took one more look at Batista, who seemed to be reading his thoughts.

“Big fucking spiders.” The man nodded and waggled his arms. “Bigger than me. Bigger than you. Like Cadillac.”

Andy closed his eyes.

Spiders the size of Cadillacs.

Swell.

* * *

A sort of manic normalcy prevailed after that, if you can call regular sorties of giant tarantula wasps into the night sky normal. For someplace like Upstate New York, it would have raised an eyebrow. But for those around the Rift, a few wasps here and there were the least of their worries.

Every other night the wasps would escape containment and try and fight their way to freedom. And every other night, the combined might of the Rift battalion would hurl them back whence they came. During the battles, mine tenders like Batista and Andy would ensconce themselves in the emergency bunker, well away from the action. The first night they’d been too afraid to leave their sleeping bunkers. That one transgression was allowed. But since then, they’d always hot-footed it to the emergency bunker. It was bigger anyway. They quickly became inured to the shrieks and sounds of combat. Great games of spades, old Doug Clegg novels, and even sleep took up their nights as they waited for the battalion’s inevitable victory.

Then one day visitors came. When they heard the claxons sounded and made their way to the emergency bunker, they found it occupied by thirty-seven dusty Mexicans who’d gotten lost on their way to the border — Douglas, Arizona, and red, white and blue freedom.

Wide-eyed and certainly wishing they’d never left their homes, the Mexicans huddled together against one wall. Beside them were piles of belongings, a mish-mash of things they thought they’d need, but nothing even remotely capable of protecting them against what the Rift had to offer. Several shuddered beneath a blanket. An old man and woman clutched each other, faces buried in each other’s shoulders, eyes crammed shut. A child cried, his head pressed against the lap of his mother.

“What the hell?” asked one of the other mine tenders.

“When did the wetbacks move in?” Batista asked.

Andy didn’t miss the irony of his friend using the pejorative. “Technically, they aren’t wetbacks.”

Batista frowned.

“I mean, they haven’t crossed any rivers yet.”  Andy shrugged. “Can’t be wetbacks if they don’t get wet.”

Batista gave him a look. “You think too much, maricone.”

The others spread out and found places to play cards, read or snooze. A few of them watched the new guests, but with only cursory interest.

Andy and Batista found an empty space on the floor. They broke out a deck of cards and began a game of gin rummy. But it became obvious after the first hand that Batista was just going through the motions. His eyes were on one of the girls huddled next to an older man with milky eyes and a missing ear. A sly, hungry look had crept onto Batista’s face and taken control.

The girl couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Her dark eyes and skin told of Indian ancestry. Her long hair had once been luxurious, but was now more the color of dirt than lustrous black. The hair was twisted and bunched beneath an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap. Her legs were drawn beneath her. Her hands rested on the old man’s leg.

She reminded Andy of a girl who’d lived near him at Fort Drum. He’d never known her name, but the memory of her had made him who he was to this day.

Andy’s father hadn’t been in the Army, but the girl’s father had. He was assigned to the 10^th Mountain Division. He was never home, always playing war games, or deployed to some far-flung country. When he was in town, she used to sit on the front stoop of their townhouse, waiting from him to come home. Her eyes were like the eyes of the Mexican girl: wide brown pools where hope shimmered above a surface-tension of fear.