Chapter Fourteen

We cannot banish dangers, but we can banish fears. We must not demean life by standing in awe of death. - David Sarnoff

Chapter 14

SGT. Edward “Red” Greene was amazed at how thoroughly and completely fucked his team’s operation had become. If they survived, he would be able to propose the Army Rangers use this operation as the official definition of “clusterfuck.”

Their infiltration of the enemy’s compound, in the wilds of Afghanistan, had gone as smoothly as they could have hoped for. Red suspected the reason it had gone so smoothly was because they had been set up.

Now he and his team were surrounded on all sides by extremists armed with beat-up AK-47s and a wild desire to die fighting for their cause. They had found a somewhat sheltered place behind a group of large rocks, but it was far from an ideal location.

His soldiers were getting shot to pieces. He was amazed, however, at their valor. He could see three distinct bullet holes in SPC. Anderson’s BDU jacket, and he was bleeding profusely. Despite this, he was still returning fire.

“How are we going to get out of here, Red?” PFC Smith shouted over the gun fire.

“Keep shooting until they’re all dead,” Red replied.

They had a limited supply of ammunition, and he knew they were going to run out pretty quickly if the fighting continued at this level for long.

“You’re crazy,” is what PFC Smith was going to say next, except he caught a bullet in the right temple. It exited from his left temple, leaving a huge mess down the side of his face and on his shoulder. Some of the blood splattered on to Red.

“Holy shit!” Red yelled.

PFC Smith blinked a couple of times, and said, “Man, that sucked!”

Then he resumed shooting. The fire fight continued for about five minutes and then, for no apparent reason, the extremists stopped shooting and just... vanished.

After a couple minutes, one of the Rangers put his helmet on the end of his rifle and held it up slightly above the rocks, to see if it would draw fire.

It did not.

They briefly discussed their best exit from the area, then ran like crazy. Three days later, they reached their rendezvous point and were picked up by a helicopter. They had bandaged each other up, but were feeling fine for the most part. Mostly, they were all just very confused. PFC Smith ought to have been dead. They were also puzzled by SPC Anderson’s status. He’d bleed enough to stain his entire jacket red. The stench of wet copper around him was overpowering. Apart from that, however, he was his usual self, cracking jokes and not holding the group up at all.

When they got home, the commanding officers were extremely interested in their story. One by one, the Rangers were interviewed to try and get a complete view of the events. They all told the same story: they had been shot all to Hell, and were hardly any worse for the wear. The soldiers themselves were as amazed as anyone else, especially PFC Smith, who had taken to singing “If I Only Had A Brain” at every opportunity.

#

For three seconds at the intersection of Second Avenue and Main Street, armageddon had arrived.

A decrepit, formerly white, but now mostly Rustoleum red, Ford Escort stalled in the middle of the train tracks on the edge of the intersection. A Chevrolet Suburban, the driver of which was paying more attention to his conversation on his Blackberry than to where his tank of a truck was pointed, plowed into the Escort at twenty miles per hour. This knocked the Escort into the path of an oncoming city bus, which struck the Escort again, sending it spinning back to where the Suburban was now stopped. A nineteen ninety three BMW 325i rear ended the bus. Another Suburban crashed into the first.

It seemed the chaos had stopped, and the drivers and passengers, some severely bloodied and broken, began to emerge from their wrecked cars (and the bus).

Then they heard the train’s horn, terrifyingly loud and getting louder. They had just had time to start running when a freight train pulling well over one hundred cars smashed its way through the intersection, throwing cars and trucks like they were made of paper, and tearing apart the bus. The sound of breaking glass and crunching and grinding metal shrieking was deafening, along with the continued blast of the train’s horn.

One of the cars landed on top of its driver. Once the train had come to a stop, it took a long while, the other drivers could hear the man trapped under his BMW asking for a little help, please.

A fire engine arrived at the scene of the wreck first, and shortly after that, an ambulance, then two more. The firefighters and EMTs were amazed by the wreckage, but more amazed to see everyone, including the people who had been trapped in the bus when it was hit by the train, standing around talking and, in some cases, arguing.

“What the hell happened here?” one of the firefighters asked the bus driver.

The bus driver said, “Well, that red Suburban over there hit the Ford Escort, and pushed it in front of my bus. I hit the Escort and stopped. I think the BMW hit the back of my bus. The blue Suburban ran into the other one for no apparent reason. I guess they were daydreaming. And then the train came through and hit everything.”

“I can’t believe any of you are still alive,” the firefighter said. “That guy over there is missing the lower half of his arm!”

“Yeah, he was stuck in the bus when the train hit it.” The bus driver seemed rather calm, almost unimpressed.

“Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I hadn’t thought about it yet. I’m just glad no one is dead.”

The EMTs transported all of the people who were seriously injured to the hospital. The doctors there had been having an extremely strange week. So far, no one had died, including people who really ought to have been dead. So far they had seen several traumatic brain injury patients where the patients’ main complaints were bad headaches. There had been at least one person who should have bled to death but, somehow, didn’t. There had been a flu patient whose temperature had gotten so high he should have died before reaching the hospital, but apart from being dehydrated, very confused and a little nonsensical, was doing fine.

The doctors were confused, but in a great mood overall. The confidence level of all the hospital employees was skyrocketing, as even their mistakes seemed to do no harm.

#

Harold Bigsby and his business partner Kirk Derwent stood outside in the alley behind their funeral home having a cigarette. They had both taken off their sober, black jackets and left them inside.

The Chapel of the Heavenly Gardens Funeral Home had been in business in Chicago for forty five years. Harold’s father, William, had opened the funeral home and taught him the trade. William retired in the early 1990’s and left the business to his sun. Kirk had become Harold’s business partner in 2002.

Harold lit a fresh cigarette and put the pack of Dunhills into his shirt pocket.

“I can’t believe how slow this week has been,” he said to Kirk. Ordinarily, there would be three or four bodies in the back being prepared for their funeral at any given time. They’d had the last funeral three days ago, and not so much as single phone call since then.

“I know. I can’t think of the last time we’ve gone an entire week without a funeral. I thought this was supposed to be an economy-proof business. Everyone dies.”

“Apparently not this week, though. Or, we need to step up our marketing efforts. We may have run out of our target market. Word of mouth only works when clients are alive to tell one another about a quality service.”

“Yeah, that might be it,” Kirk said. He took a drag on his cigarette.

#

Ares stood to one side of the street in Palestine. A Palestinian bomber had just attacked Israel, and the Israeli army was now returning the favor with a rain of mortars.

Ares came to Israel and Palestine anytime he was feeling down. He rarely had to wait long for some kind of military action to cheer him up.

A mortar landed directly across the street from Ares and exploded, showering him with a rain of concrete and debris. He took a deep breath of the dust and smoke, and exhaled again as though he had smelled a fine meal. He could hear screaming and shouts, vows of revenge and cries of pain.

He was surprised, and dismayed, to see survivors climbing from the rubble of the building that had just been hit. They were bloody and wounded, but dying men don’t scream for vengeance with that kind of enthusiasm.

“Well, dammit,” Ares said to himself. He was not here to witness miraculous survivals. “I guess I have to do everything myself.”

A man, his clothes now tattered and covered with dust, stood in the street cursing Israel and swearing they would pay for their crimes.

This guy oughta be dead, Ares thought. Well, I guess I’ll just help him along.

Ares strode over to the man, who was still violently shaking his fists and carrying on, grabbed his head and twisted, snapping the man’s neck.

“Ow!” the man yelled, but did not die. Ares looked at him, completely aghast.

“Dammit, that should have killed you. A wise guy, huh?” Ares said. The man, his head turned at a funny angle now, turned and saw Ares. His eyes grew wide, and his nostrils flared. He began cursing Ares as well as Israel.

“This just isn’t my day,” Ares said. He drew a knife then, and slit the man’s throat. The new wound sprayed blood, and the man looked very puzzled for a moment.

Then he continued cursing at Ares, though he was gurgling more than screaming now.

Ares did something then he had rarely done: he gave up and walked away.

“Fucking guy, ruining all my fun,” Ares muttered, and kicked at a rock. “Who does he think he is?”