“What is this wondrous thing you call ‘shuteye’?”
The combat medic sighs. “Sergeant Ruiz doesn’t have the authority to give you an Article 15 punishment. I’ll put in a word with him about how hard he’s riding you.”
“Why? Look at me, Doctor. I’m working outside. Exercise, sunlight, fresh air.”
The truth is he has not been this tired since Basic. He remembers sleeping on his feet all the way to some range in the middle of nowhere, stuffed into a cattle car with the rest of his training company. That was nothing compared to this. One thing he can thank the Army for: a deep appreciation for the simple things in life that are absent during combat, like a hot shower, air-conditioning, greasy burgers and fries, time for yourself, driving a car going nowhere in particular, privacy, a girlfriend. And decent sleep.
They flinch at the high-pitched crack of carbines down the street. First Platoon boys providing security for the cleanup detail, dropping Mad Dogs at the perimeter.
“And my own bodyguards,” McLeod adds, then turns and shouts, “Keep ’em coming! Get some!” He grins. “They keep killing Mad Dogs over there, and me and my new friends keep stacking them nice and neat over here so we can burn them later for public health. Do you know what I call that, Doctor? Do you?”
“No, what do you call that, Private?” Doc Waters asks, his patience suddenly exhausted.
“Job security!”
The medic chuckles despite himself, shaking his head.
A soldier calls from the front doors of the school. “We got more people coming in, Doc. You want to check them out?”
“You’re a piece of work, Private,” Doc Waters tells McLeod, and returns to the front doors of the school, where four civilians are being held at gunpoint.
“I try my best, Doctor,” McLeod mutters, bending over and grabbing the girl’s ankles. “I try my best.”
First Platoon’s Sergeant Hooper tells the detail to stop work for the day and come get some chow.
“Roger that,” says McLeod, dropping the corpse’s legs again, stripping off his gloves and walking over to the curb, where the boys from First Platoon are already washing their hands and tearing the plastic wrapping off their MREs.
The MRE provides twelve hundred calories and contains a main entree, side dish, plastic spoon, bread or crackers and spread, sports drink or dairy shake or some other beverage, seasonings, pack of gum, candy such as Tootsie Rolls or a pastry, flameless ration heater, matches, napkins and moist toilette.
Tonight, McLeod has scored chicken and dumplings. Excellent, he tells himself. He pockets the moist toilette. He’s been saving them up and intends to take a quick whore’s bath after his work here is over.
“What’d you get?” one of the other soldiers says.
“Beef brisket,” another answers him.
“I’ll trade you chili and macaroni.”
“All right.”
“My mom used to make this incredible chili. She’d get the beef from Costco—”
“How can I eat this shit while I’m listening to you talk about your mom’s home cooking?”
“Who has Tabasco sauce?”
“Who’s got C4? Let’s make a fire and heat this shit up and eat it right.”
“No fires, boys,” Sergeant Hooper says, standing nearby with his thumbs hooked in his load-carrying vest. “Chow down that supper fast.”
Small arms fire erupts to the south.
“Stop making more work for us!” one of the grunts calls out. “We’re taking five over here.”
“That’s not our guys,” McLeod says. “It’s farther south. It’s Alpha. Or Bravo.”
“Listen to General Patton here.”
McLeod says, “The curfew is on. The new ROE says anybody they see walking the street after curfew is hostile and they are cleared hot.”
“Finally taking the gloves off,” one of the grunts says, nodding. “Second Platoon’s LT is full of crap. We take the gloves off and put these mutants down, we’ll have this city cleaned up in no time.” He glares and his face turns red. “There ain’t no world ending. My mom and sister are doing just fine.”
“Okay, peace, brother,” says one of his comrades. “I don’t feel like fighting with you about it again.”
“Next time, I won’t try to break it up,” says the third. “You dicks got me in trouble.”
“And what about you, McLeod?” the first grunt says in a menacing tone. “Is the world ending? What do you think?”
“Oh, I think whatever you think,” McLeod says cheerfully.
The soldier blinks, then says, “Well, okay, then.”
McLeod goes back to eating, tuning out the soldiers and listening to the sound of gunfire all around the city as Warlord’s companies slowly grind their way through the wreckage to consolidate. It is a disturbing sound. It is the sound of a lot of people dying.
Is the world ending? You betcha, he thinks.
He remembers feeling a perverse thrill at the LT’s speech. The end of the world. Yes, sir! No more taxes, credit card debt, dance clubs, snooty cheerleaders, asshole jocks, careers, bank accounts, retirement worries, gym class, bad TV shows, plastic surgery, stupid politicians, megachurches or the constant feeling that you are in a hole and can’t get out. No more stupid rules that hem you in from every side.
Life is about to get a whole lot simpler. Just the law of the gun, and McLeod is hanging out with the people who have the best guns. As if to lend weight to this thought, the shooting to the south suddenly intensifies.
With each death out there, the world’s memory is getting shorter. A man could become reborn in this struggle and rename himself. No more living in the shadow of his great politician dad and his class clown past. During every screw-up in high school, McLeod would stand before his dad with a defiant smile, but the bastard never so much as blinked at him, too sanctimonious to lose his temper or even scold him his wayward son. Over time, the screw-ups got bigger, bolder, to get a reaction, any reaction. His upper-crust mother finally broke down, but he never won against dear old Dad of Steel. When he got caught shoplifting for the second time, his dad was through cleaning up his messes quietly behind the scenes, and McLeod was given a choice of jail or the Army.
When you screw up in the Army, you get a big reaction. Guaranteed.
McLeod smiles to himself as he realizes that Dad will probably survive after all. All the bigshot politicians are probably being squirreled away to secret bunkers. Even though his dad’s side is out of power right now, all the oligarchs stick together. First thing they’ll do when they get out is nuke the Chinese and hand over everything that’s left to the rich people. Can’t come out the other side of Armageddon and make a fresh start for humanity without bringing all our old problems with us, right-right?
He’d been looking forward to college, though. He loves to read and used to fantasize about spending hours cracking open volumes in the college library, growing smarter by the minute with the knowledge of the ages in his hands. He wanted to sit on the floor with a bunch of intellectuals who would appreciate his true genius. He wanted to study philosophy and try to figure out if there is any point to all of the misery he has already seen in his young life.
But there won’t be any more of that for a long time, he thinks. By the time the human race gets through this nightmare, in a few generations we’ll be lucky to be able to read a book.
“We should elect a new leader, like Bishop,” one of the grunts is saying. “Then we could do our own thing.”
“Know what I’d do? I’d go out and get some pussy. I’m freaking horny as hell and if we’re all going to die, why aren’t we going out and getting us some chicks? Especially since most of them seem to be dying.”
“You know what happens when civilians walk up to the door and Doc Waters takes them away? He makes them strip so he can check them for bites.”
“Even that chick that came in about an hour ago?”
“Oh, definitely.”
“Man, she was definitely hot.”
“You can’t elect your own leaders in the Army,” McLeod says. “If we stop following orders, there will be no more Army. We might as well all go off on our own and start looting and raping now until we’re killed a few hours later.”
