Mitch wiped some moisture from his eyes, laughed despite himself. “Tommy, you’re a fucking asshole.”
“I know I am. Sometimes I wish I could be something else,” he said, seeming to mean it. “But, you know like I always say, my mother told me to go with my strengths.”
There was a few minutes of silence, then Mitch said, “I’m not leaving this town until I find Chrissy.”
“Sure, but Wanda Sepperley said she’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, but I got me a feeling in my belly that’s telling me otherwise,” Mitch admitted. “I got to find her. You with me on that?”
“Of course I am. Where do we start?”
“Let’s go see Wanda again.”
7
“All I’m saying, Neiderhauser, is to give peace a chance,” Henry T. Oates said now that his command was decimated, his mission scrubbed, and his raft done sunk. “You gotta quit trying to cornhole every unfriendly you meet, son. Now, next worm-sucking zombie you find, try hearts and flowers first. Because, as the Lord is my witness, one-two-three-four, we don’t want your fucking war! Sing it with me, Neiderhumper: One-two-three-four, we don’t want your fucking war! Louder, you ass-fucking communist flag-burning red limp-wristed pinko, louder! With conviction, I say! ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR, WE DON’T
Neiderhauser stood there, making a sound that was close to a whimper.
Oates spat into the water. “Why, you war-mongering, peace-hating, red neck right-wing mother-raper! I’m thinking you’re enjoying this, Neiderhumper. I’m beginning to think that you are one Grade A, Class One lifetaker with absolutely no respect for human life. And, to tell you the truth, you are scaring me, son. You are making my pink, un-probed asshole pucker tighter than a virgin’s first kiss.”
Neiderhauser continued to stand there, the water up above his knees, that dead expression on his face. After they made it out of All Saints Cemetery, where Hinks had been pulled into the drink by that rabid pack of dead things, the Zodiac raft was in rough shape. The flotation chambers up near the bow had all deflated and they had a bad list that made it real tough to get any speed out of the old girl. But she’d gotten them out of River Town and into the fringe of Crandon before she gasped her last breath. And that was something.
Now they were on foot, all that remained of the squad, Neiderhauser and Oates. At first the water was up to their waists, but now it was down near their knees and that was saying progress, in Oates way of thinking.
Neiderhauser was in shock or maybe just fucking crazy, Oates was thinking. Hinks had gotten like that, too, after the tango in the alley. Now Hinks was dead and Oates’ squad consisted of just Neiderhauser and him. And wasn’t that just sweet? Oates had marched through the shit before with bodies dropping quicker than panties at a frat party, but he’d never lost so many men so quickly. Sure, Witcham was a hellzone, but command wouldn’t understand that and would like it even less.
Tell you what, Angela, Oates thought, imagining his wife once again, they’re not gonna sink me on this one. Don’t recall the captain saying I was taking these boys into combat and surely not against dead people. No, I will not be hung out to dry on this one, for Henry T. Oates might be one foul-mouthed, ballbusting, intolerant sonofabitch, but he is not stupid. And he will not be taking the fall for this.
Oates was standing at the intersection of two streets, studying his pocket compass with the luminous dial, knowing he had to head east to make it back to whatever civilization still remained in Witcham. West was River Town and the swollen Black River and east would carry them out of this. But to go east meant heading down a very narrow street with lots of abandoned vehicles and crowded buildings, too many places for unfriendlies to be hiding. And it was dark, damn it was dark.
“Well, I tell you, Neiderhumper,” he said. “This is certainly a pickle we’re in. I’m not liking what lays just ahead, but I’m not seeing a choice either.”
Neiderhauser just stood there impassively.
“Are you with me, son?”
Yeah, Neiderhauser was in shock. Just too much death and insanity shoved down his throat at once. It had sunk his mind down somewhere south of bad. He was physically there, but that was about it. Oates had seen it before. He remembered when he was with the 101^st over in Kuwait. They’d opened up on a Republican Guard unit with recoilless rifle fire and heavy machine guns, finished them off with a mortar barrage. They’d been driving old Russian trucks, those ragheads, and when the party was over with, there was nothing but a lot of mangled metal, burning bodies, and clouds of black smoke spiraling into the air. The stink of cremated flesh made quite a few of Oates’ platoon go to their knees and vomit. But there was a black guy named Robbins from Des Moines who was one tough boy, a real hard-charger. He went over to the trucks and caught sight of an Iraqi hanging from the wreckage of a truck, impaled by a shelf of twisted metal. He was on fire. In fact, his guts had been blown out and they were on fire, too, his bowels draped over the cab and on the ground, smoking and sputtering like those snakes you light up on the Fourth of July.
Robbins just lost it.
First he started crying, then screaming, then he fell to his knees and did the craziest thing Oates had ever seen: he yanked out his dick and started pulling on it. Poor thing was shriveled-up like a sun-scorched blacksnake on an Alabama turnpike, but Robbins kept pulling on it. And it did not seem to be out of any sexual need, for that dick would not grow, but maybe to assure himself that it was still there or maybe that he was.
The other men got real uncomfortable about it all. Oates walked over there and said, “Robbins? Daddy says no pee-pee pulling in mixed company, so put that little thing away.”
But Robbins kept at it. His eyes were glazed and he did not seem to aware of anything around him.
“I said, put that fucker away,” Oates told him. And when raising his voice an octave got no response, he went wild. He pulled Robbins to his feet and slapped him across the face and kept slapping him until that poor bastard fell down, sobbing. Afterwards there wasn’t a damn thing to do put shoot him up with some Demerol and medvac him out.
Combat and death got to men like that sometimes.
And that’s what had happened to Neiderhauser. Thing was, there was no medvac out here, wasn’t even a radio, and being that the squad was down to two, Oates needed Neiderhauser and needed him in command of his faculties.
“Listen, Neiderhumper, I’ll get you out of here, but you got to snap out of this shit because we just don’t have the time for a fucking touchie-feelie encounter session and a good cry. So I’m telling you?no, fuck that, I’m ordering you?to find your balls and act like a goddamn man. Now are you going to do that or am I gonna have to traumatize your ass with some of that world famous Sergeant Henry T. Oates cock-knocking therapy that’s known far and wide?”
Neiderhauser did not move.
“All right then,” Oates said, shouldering his rifle. “I am not gonna stand here playing fucking Statues with you like a couple kids in the park. No, sir.”
Oates walked over to him, slapped him across the face and then promptly kneed him in the belly. Neiderhauser doubled over with a gasp and Oates punched him in the back of the head with enough force to drive him down into the water. Neiderhauser came up swinging. He caught Oates on the side of the face and nearly flattened him. He swung a few more times and Oates just kept slapping him until he came out of it.
“What…the…fuck,” he kept saying as Oates put an armlock on him and held him pretty much immobile. “What…the fuck…did…you…do…that…for?”
“Because I had to, son, only because I had to.”
Neiderhauser stood there, panting, the rain running down his poncho. “I…I lost it, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did.”
“I’m okay now.”
“Sure, you are. Now let’s get out of here.”
