The War After Armageddon

“Showers?” Bratty cried, going into one of his favorite routines. “Jesus Christ! You’re just starting to smell like soldiers. I hear about any enlisted man in this battalion getting a shower before I personally hand him the soap, and he and his chain of command are going to wish they’d been captured by the J’s. Got that? You tell everybody in Hindquarters Company what I said.”

“Yes, Sergeant Major.” The sergeant glanced at Cavanaugh again, then did an about-face and walked off. Radiating dejection like a disappointed kid.

“Fucking clerks,” Bratty said. “This is a goddamned Infantry battalion.”

“Why won’t you let them take showers? Just curious.”

Bratty looked at the battalion commander. “Sir, you’re a kick-ass officer. But you’d never make an NCO.”

“And why’s that?”

“You don’t think the right way. Look. All our grungies are going through a cold-turkey withdrawal after being in the fight for a couple of days. After the high comes the crash. They don’t know what they want, exactly, but tired as they are, they hear the fighting over that ridge, and it’s like laying down a scent in front of a pack of hounds. Makes them want to kill people and bust stuff. And right now, the closest people to hand that might be available for killing are the local yokels. Who, in the soldiers’ minds, are responsible for yesterday’s crucifixion scene. Under the circumstances, the task of a battalion sergeant major is to redirect the negative energies.”

“Which means?”

“I’d rather have our soldiers pissed at me and griping because I won’t let them wash their nasty asses than have them eyeing the rags and twitching their trigger fingers. Better for them to bitch about the hard-ass, pigheaded, unreasonable sergeant major.”

“Thanks for sharing your trade secrets. You know, Frederick the Great believed that his soldiers needed to fear their officers more than they did the enemy. Wouldn’t work in our Army, of course.”

“Sir, I don’t want them to fear me. Not exactly. I just want them to stop fantasizing about double-tapping rags and go back to dreaming about getting out of the Army and landing a job that, one fine day, puts them in a position to employ me in cleaning public toilets for the rest of my life.”

The battalion command channel crackled to life. It was the Charlie Company commander, Jake Walker.

“Bayonet Six, we got trouble in River City.” He sounded out of breath.

“What’s the situation?”

“They’re bringing corpses out of the houses. All over the place. You should hear them hollering and screaming.”

“What kind of corpses? Military?”

“No. Civilians. Kids. Old men. Everybody.”

“How many? How many corpses?”

“I don’t know… dozens… hundreds. They must’ve died during the night. Can’t you hear the screaming?”

“Hold tight,” Cavanaugh said. “And don’t touch any of the bodies. Get your men under positive control. No physical contact with the corpses. Keep your distance. Shoot anybody who gets too close. I’m on my way. Out.”

Cavanaugh turned to the sergeant major. “Get Doc Culver. Wherever he is. We’ve got an epidemic on our hands.”

As the two men exited the command vehicle and stepped into the cool, bright morning, they saw a soldier stagger out of a house, clutching madly at his stomach, then at his throat, then at his lower abdomen. Before anyone could reach him, he toppled to the ground.

NINETEEN

NAZARETH, TACTICAL OPERATIONS CENTER, 1–18 INFANTRY

“Just stay back,” Chief Warrant Officer Culver yelled. Lowering his voice, the physician’s assistant said, “You, too, sir. Let me figure this out.”

“He’s dead, Chief?”

“Yeah, he’s dead. Dead dead. Y’all get back, in case this is some Black Plague from Outer Space.”

Doc Culver began stripping off the soldier’s uniform.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?” Pat Cavanaugh asked him.

“Yeah, but I’m not. If DeSantis here has anything that could kill him since I saw him doing pushups a half-hour ago, I’m already dead meat.”

He tore off uniform parts and undergarments, ripping them with his Buck knife. When the reinforced cloth resisted, Culver’s roughness increased. He didn’t want anyone to see that his hands were shaking.

Black flies settled on white flesh, scornful of attempts to shoo them.

“Who saw him last? Who was with him? What was he doing? Anybody?”

The dead soldier’s skin looked unblemished. Culver yanked down the trousers, looking for spots, glandular swelling, discoloration where it would mean something other than a combat bruise.

All he found was a heat rash, raw pink inside the soldier’s thighs. “What was he doing when he ran out of the house? Tell me again. Anybody who saw him.”

“Grabbing at himself. His gut, his throat,” Bratty said. The Command sergeant major surveyed the gawking soldiers. “It’s no-bullshit time. Tell Chief Culver what you know. Who was with him in that house? What was DeSantis doing?”

A specialist looked away. Bratty caught it. “Prusinski. You in there with him? What was he up to?”