SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

It was like stepping on a stove. A hiss, followed by a sublime moment of nothing. Then lightning coursed along his leg, and slammed into his head. Luke tried to scream, but only managed a high, mewling sound like a dog whose lungs had been crushed by a car. He threw himself forward, and the bridge shuddered under his horizontal weight. His foot came out of the water, but kept burning in his boot. Luke snatched his canteen, and dumped the remaining water over his foot. There wasn’t much, but smoke rose from Luke’s leg as the cool stream turned his boot from soaked to sodden. He fell back, breathing in little sobs as he waited for the pain to retreat.

It did, eventually. Luke moved his foot experimentally. The skin felt taut, swollen inside its leather casing like an overcooked sausage. He wiggled each toe, and felt it move even if there was a delay from his brain to his foot. He rolled onto his side, and that was when he saw it; the sleek, black stock of a standard-issue M-16. Luke blinked, but the stock stayed there, standing straight up not two feet from the bridge.

Luke was flat on his belly, peering at the stock. There was a deep groove along the right side, and one screw seemed a little loose, but it looked serviceable. A ball chain ran through the sling clip, and a single dog tag trailed in the water. He wondered how long it had been submerged, and if it would be possible to dry it out and get it working again. He wondered if the bayonet was still in one piece. He ran his tongue back and forth over his teeth. He tasted blood, and he couldn’t place when that had started. He swallowed hard, and reached. His fingertips were half an inch from the rifle butt when the bridge shivered. Luke froze. He looked down, and something looked back up at him.

The kid had been handsome. His hair looked like black silk in the water, and the strands billowed out to reveal a face that was all hard planes and sharp features. He had a straight nose, a strong jaw, and a single, dark eye like a polished agate. The other eye was gone, swallowed up by a black hole in the side of his skull. White bone jutted up through an alien landscape of melted fat and seared skin. He was missing a leg, and most of an arm. The rifle was driven in through his heart, pinning him down like a moth on a cork board. The eye blinked, and the mouth opened. He reached for Luke, and Luke snatched his arm back so fast he was sure he’d tip the bridge and spill himself over the side.

The mist shifted. Upstream the scarred stock of an AK-47 stuck out at a 45-degree angle. The distinct, heavy butt of an M-1 Garand rose like the mast of a sunken ship, straight and true with the broken bowline of its strap bobbing to and fro. There were more, many more, in uneven, staggered lines up and down the wide river. They shifted, shook, and occasionally a few fingers broke the surface. They scrabbled at the weapons, fingernails leaving gouges and grooves, but none of them came free.

Luke turned his eyes away, and pulled himself to his feet. He ignored the pain the ropes cut into his palms, and the protest from his missing finger. He rejected the outrage from his swollen foot or twisted ankle. He took deep, chest-stretching breaths, and looked straight ahead. He didn’t run, but only because some distant part of him knew that if he did he’d go down to join the dead men all around him.

The bridge ended, and Luke collapsed onto solid ground. He coughed and wheezed, cried and shuddered. He heaved, but nothing came up. Something burst in his boot, and thick fluid sloshed in his sock. He contemplated staying where he was until something came along and put him out of his misery. Or doing it himself. He stroked his hand along the .45 then froze. He pulled his hand away from the gun, got up, and started moving again.

Luke toured islands of madness in a quiet, uncaring sea. He passed through an orchard of gallows trees, where meat had been hung piecemeal from vines that pulsed and quivered like spider veins. He saw a place where cleavers were buried in salted stumps like axes awaiting the grinder. Another was covered in stone plinths, leaning against each other in some places, standing tall in others. Some bore dark stains, and the wind howled like the rocks had bitten it bloody. He followed mismatched footprints through gray dirt on an isle where nothing grew, and felt eyes on his back even though there was nowhere to hide. He crossed over stone arches, chain suspension bridges, twisted trees that grew from one bank to another, and made his way over fallen stones where the river gurgled and whispered with drowned secrets. He saw shapes in the shadows; hunched, bent things that watched with wide, yellow eyes as he passed. Twice they ran when he pulled his pistol. The third time he fired, and something screamed. He kept moving.