The War After Armageddon

“Grenade!” Crospey screamed. He dived forward.

Garcia hurled himself back out through the doorway.

As he hit the ground, the concussion slammed him. And he realized what had just happened, as if watching an instant replay.

Cropsey had thrown himself on top of the grenade.

Garcia stormed back into the house. There were moans now. A male voice. Not Cropsey. And shouting upstairs. Boots thumping.

“Everybody stay put,” Garcia shouted.

He rushed toward the room in which the girl and her family had been promised a refuge. Disregarding everything but the need to spill his rage.

He emptied one magazine blindly into the darkness. Then he pulled another magazine from his vest and shot it dry.

He reloaded. But he didn’t pull the trigger immediately. He listened.

When he heard a stuttering groan, he spent the third mag in the direction of the sound.

With the room silenced, Garcia dropped to the ground, cradling his weapon amid the dust and smoke.

* * *

When the firing stopped, Corporal Tony Gallotti waited for a voice, a command. But all he heard was a faint moan from below: a Marine.

“Sergeant Garcia?”

No reply.

“Sergeant Garcia?”

Gallotti flipped down the night-vision device on his helmet. Peering through the dust and debris.

A voice from down below called, “Sergeant Garcia?”

That was Corporal Banks. Yelling in from the doorway.

“It’s Gallotti. I’m coming down from the second deck. Tyrrell, take my back. Yon, you’re overwatch. Corpsman! Marines down!”

As Gallotti felt his way down the stairs, adjusting to the spook-light in his reticle, he spotted Sergeant Garcia. Slumped against the wall. Not moving.

“Sergeant G? Yo, Sergeant Garcia?”

Then he saw the body. What was left of it. Through the smoke, he couldn’t identify the Marine.

He thought he saw Garcia’s chest heave.

“Corpsman!”

Moaning haunted the background. It sounded like it might be Larsen.

Gallotti crossed the hall to where Garcia sat. Breathing all right. No blood-shine. Then the corporal saw that Garcia’s hand rested on a helmet containing a severed head.

Gallotti flipped up the night-sight and tore the flashlight off his armored vest. With the red light in his face, Garcia looked up. He was crying, but there was no par tic u lar expression on his face. Tears streaked the dust caked on his cheeks.

Garcia dropped his head again.

“Sergeant Garcia? You okay? Hey?”

The sergeant didn’t respond.

More boots. A lot more boots. More voices. Murphy, the corpsman, spoke from the corporal’s rear.

“Who’s down.”

“I think it’s Larsen. In there. Just check it out, Murph.”

The corporal squatted by Garcia. He passed his flashlight in front of the sergeant’s face. “You okay, Sergeant Garcia? You hit, man?”

Garcia looked up. So abruptly that the corporal recoiled.

“That’s Cropsey’s head,” he told Gallotti. “We have to put him back together.”

Garcia hoisted himself to his feet, sliding up the wall, thrusting his body armor against the force of gravity. He walked outside.

“Sergeant G? You all right?”

Garcia didn’t speak again until they were in the courtyard. With Marines gathering from beyond the compound. Captain Cunningham materialized. The company commander had washed his face and shaved.

The captain rushed up to Garcia and Gallotti.

“What happened?”

Gallotti was about to speak for the sergeant, to cover for him, but Garcia’s shoulders relaxed, and he answered for himself.

“We didn’t check the women, sir. I mean, we kept our hands off them, didn’t frisk them or anything. I was worried about things getting out of hand.” Garcia’s voice was flat, as if he were reporting on missing tent pegs. “She looked like a kid, sir. Not a little kid. But a kid. She tossed a grenade into the room where Larsen and Polanski were bunking. It was quick, sir. Me and Cropsey went after her. I’d been giving him some counseling outside the doorway. Cropsey went in first. And she flipped out another grenade. He jumped on it.” Garcia looked past the captain and into the night. “I think I killed them all, sir. There were three of them, and I think I killed them all.”

The captain turned to the gathering Marines. “First Sergeant?”

“He’s checking the OPs, sir.”

“Gunny Matthews?”

“Sir?”

“I want every Arab in this ville strip-searched.”

“The women, sir?”

“Girls, women. Give them what privacy you can, and no nonsense. But everyone gets searched. Down to their underwear. Two Marines present at all times. Pass the word.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You all right, Sergeant Garcia?”

“Cropsey threw himself on the grenade, sir.”

“You told me that.”

“I don’t know why he did it, sir.”

“He was a good Marine.”

But Garcia was stubborn. “I just don’t know why he did it.” “Make a hole!” The corpsman and another Marine lugged out a stretcher.

It was Larsen. His face had been erased. His eyes were gone. The cavity where his mouth had been bubbled pink over scarlet meat.