GWOT VI - Cruelty
Mar. 8th, 2020 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT VI - Cruelty
[This is a third party viewpoint]
He had been walking forever. The days sort of numbed into a vagueness of hunger, fear and loneliness. He'd drifted into a camp of some kind, yet another one, one of many that he'd drifted into over the years since…
Don't think of that. Don't think of the light that you put up your hand to block and you see the bones of your hand perfectly outlined. Don't feel the searing heat on your skin as you dive into the pool. Don't look up to see the mushroom cloud rising over what had been your home city. Don't think don't think don't think.
But he'd survived somehow. In his lucid moments he'd found clothing, eaten food, tried to purify water. Harried helpers in vests had looked at him, tried to talk to him, gotten him to admit his name for their forms. At first there had been the horrible work of rescue, all too much of it pointless and futile. Then there had been camps. Work for food in the belly. The fear of men with weapons, as ancient as the first ape who picked up a thigh bone and chittered at the lesser apes.
Now there was more fear, yet again. And walking. The families were getting up and walking. So he got up and walked with them.
The column of refugees seemed endless. People carried … what they could carry. Some helped each other. Others did not.
His first hint of personal fear was the warning sign.
A jacked up pickup truck was flipped upside down with a circle and slash painted over the crosses on either side. It had burned. He could smell pork as well as tires and plastic and fuels.
That's right. They don't like us because we're not Christian.
He wasn't anything any more. If there were a God there would have been no mushroom… don't think don't think don't think.
A little further along was a sign, plywood, stenciled and painted.
He could still read. He usually didn't bother. But his feet were tired and he wanted a good excuse to stop for a minute.
"YOU ARE ENTERING THE CALIFORNIA SECTOR. LAWS ENFORCED BY DEADLY FORCE. ROAD CLOSED TO ALL UNAUTHORIZED TRAFFIC. UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLES WILL BE DESTROYED ON SIGHT."
There were huge concrete blocks in the road, forcing any traffic to stop and read the sign, and then creep through a weaving S curve to proceed. New fencing stretched to either side all the way to the drainage ditches. It had signs too. "RESTRICTED MILITARY AREA. DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED."
All the signs had a neatly stenciled skull and crossbones on them.
He shivered. He could not have explained why. But it woke up a memory. Don't think don't think don't think.
He weaved around the concrete blocks with everyone else.
Shortly there was another sign.
This one had two skulls.
Barbed wire stretched across the road, forcing people to go right past the sign, nearly touching it. There were two overlapping barbed wire gates for vehicles, padlocked together and clearly stolen from some farmer's fields, but the gate had two even scarier signs on it.
"DANGER MINEFIELD."
"IF YOU TOUCH THIS GATE YOU WILL BE SHOT. YOU ARE UNDER SNIPER OBSERVATION."
And this time there was a corpse.
He had seen lots of corpses. Carried them. Saw them turn from people too. He'd stopped bothering with what had once been his reflexes. Head tilt, chin lift. Jaw thrust. Place an advanced… don't think don't think.
This corpse was fresh, it had gone hard but hadn't had time to bloat. Its clothes were clean, too. That meant something. He couldn't quite not think.
To distract himself he read the other sign, the huge sign.
"CALIFORNIA SECURITY CONTROL POINT. IF YOU GO BEYOND THIS POINT YOU WILL BE SEARCHED. IF YOU TURN BACK AT ANY TIME BEFORE COMPLETING THE SEARCH PROCEDURE, YOU WILL BE SHOT."
There were more corpses beyond. But only a few. Most people had kept going, and whatever was happening wasn't causing there to be a long line.
He kept going.
On the other side of the sign, it said "TURN BACK AROUND, DON'T READ THIS, YOU WILL BE SHOT." And four skulls and a stolen DO NOT ENTER SIGN and a circle and slash over an arrow pointing in the deadly direction.
So he did, at once. His scalp prickled.
###
"Hey sarge, look at this guy."
They were both looking through tripod mounted binoculars. Below them were two snipers lying on what had been yoga pads. They had their rifles ready to hand, but only one of them was 'hot' at any given time, ready to fire instantly if someone saw something that warranted it.
Like another attempt to open the gate.
"Zombie. What of it?"
That was their unkind slang term for what World War I had called 'shell shocked.' The psychological walking wounded. Usually harmless, often unpredictable.
"He's looking around a lot. Xtian spotter?"
"Let's jack him up at the control point."
The sergeant spoke into his radio.
###
About half a mile further down, there was another barbed wire fence across the road, double gate, almost the same as the first.
Beyond it, now there was a line.
And the line was moving, but slowly.
New signs.
"KEEP YOUR HANDS IN SIGHT. KEEP YOUR HANDS IN SIGHT. IF THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU DOES NOT HAVE THEIR HANDS IN SIGHT, THEY AND YOU ARE GOING TO BE SHOT. MAKE THEM KEEP THEIR HANDS IN SIGHT!"
But many people were carrying things.
There was a concrete and sandbag assembly in the middle of the road, with a pit dug into the shoulder.
In it stood a man. With a mustache.
The mustache made him remember something.
He didn't want to remember anything any more.
But the man-with-a-gun was looking at everyone carefully, wearing a radio and headset with his rifle in his hands and a transmit button on the front trigger guard.
He was one of these California soldiers.
The first one he had seen.
Who promptly growled, "Move along!"
So he did.
###
"Yeah, sarge, he's hinky. Now or after search?"
"After search."
###
There were tents against the hot sun, and tables, and signs.
Another California soldier.
Several other soldiers. They wore armbands with a G letter on them. They did not have guns but they carried themselves with a purpose and they had white sticks on their belts.
Everyone had to put their stuff on the table. Then walk over to be patted down by a 'G.' Then walk back and show their stuff to another, alert G.
The Californian moved around a lot.
As he watched, he walked forward to take the first Californian's place in the chicken pit.
Why did he know what a chicken pit was?
He was starting to remember things.
And he didn't want to.
"Put your stuff on the … never mind … walk over there, stand with your feet on the foot prints and stick your arms out to either side."
He did. The search found only a knife. He was mildly surprised when the 'G' did not steal it, but gave it back instead, with a kindly "Put it in your back pocket please."
Please.
That was not a word he had heard for a very long time.
###
[To be continued…]
[This is a third party viewpoint]
He had been walking forever. The days sort of numbed into a vagueness of hunger, fear and loneliness. He'd drifted into a camp of some kind, yet another one, one of many that he'd drifted into over the years since…
Don't think of that. Don't think of the light that you put up your hand to block and you see the bones of your hand perfectly outlined. Don't feel the searing heat on your skin as you dive into the pool. Don't look up to see the mushroom cloud rising over what had been your home city. Don't think don't think don't think.
But he'd survived somehow. In his lucid moments he'd found clothing, eaten food, tried to purify water. Harried helpers in vests had looked at him, tried to talk to him, gotten him to admit his name for their forms. At first there had been the horrible work of rescue, all too much of it pointless and futile. Then there had been camps. Work for food in the belly. The fear of men with weapons, as ancient as the first ape who picked up a thigh bone and chittered at the lesser apes.
Now there was more fear, yet again. And walking. The families were getting up and walking. So he got up and walked with them.
The column of refugees seemed endless. People carried … what they could carry. Some helped each other. Others did not.
His first hint of personal fear was the warning sign.
A jacked up pickup truck was flipped upside down with a circle and slash painted over the crosses on either side. It had burned. He could smell pork as well as tires and plastic and fuels.
That's right. They don't like us because we're not Christian.
He wasn't anything any more. If there were a God there would have been no mushroom… don't think don't think don't think.
A little further along was a sign, plywood, stenciled and painted.
He could still read. He usually didn't bother. But his feet were tired and he wanted a good excuse to stop for a minute.
"YOU ARE ENTERING THE CALIFORNIA SECTOR. LAWS ENFORCED BY DEADLY FORCE. ROAD CLOSED TO ALL UNAUTHORIZED TRAFFIC. UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLES WILL BE DESTROYED ON SIGHT."
There were huge concrete blocks in the road, forcing any traffic to stop and read the sign, and then creep through a weaving S curve to proceed. New fencing stretched to either side all the way to the drainage ditches. It had signs too. "RESTRICTED MILITARY AREA. DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED."
All the signs had a neatly stenciled skull and crossbones on them.
He shivered. He could not have explained why. But it woke up a memory. Don't think don't think don't think.
He weaved around the concrete blocks with everyone else.
Shortly there was another sign.
This one had two skulls.
Barbed wire stretched across the road, forcing people to go right past the sign, nearly touching it. There were two overlapping barbed wire gates for vehicles, padlocked together and clearly stolen from some farmer's fields, but the gate had two even scarier signs on it.
"DANGER MINEFIELD."
"IF YOU TOUCH THIS GATE YOU WILL BE SHOT. YOU ARE UNDER SNIPER OBSERVATION."
And this time there was a corpse.
He had seen lots of corpses. Carried them. Saw them turn from people too. He'd stopped bothering with what had once been his reflexes. Head tilt, chin lift. Jaw thrust. Place an advanced… don't think don't think.
This corpse was fresh, it had gone hard but hadn't had time to bloat. Its clothes were clean, too. That meant something. He couldn't quite not think.
To distract himself he read the other sign, the huge sign.
"CALIFORNIA SECURITY CONTROL POINT. IF YOU GO BEYOND THIS POINT YOU WILL BE SEARCHED. IF YOU TURN BACK AT ANY TIME BEFORE COMPLETING THE SEARCH PROCEDURE, YOU WILL BE SHOT."
There were more corpses beyond. But only a few. Most people had kept going, and whatever was happening wasn't causing there to be a long line.
He kept going.
On the other side of the sign, it said "TURN BACK AROUND, DON'T READ THIS, YOU WILL BE SHOT." And four skulls and a stolen DO NOT ENTER SIGN and a circle and slash over an arrow pointing in the deadly direction.
So he did, at once. His scalp prickled.
###
"Hey sarge, look at this guy."
They were both looking through tripod mounted binoculars. Below them were two snipers lying on what had been yoga pads. They had their rifles ready to hand, but only one of them was 'hot' at any given time, ready to fire instantly if someone saw something that warranted it.
Like another attempt to open the gate.
"Zombie. What of it?"
That was their unkind slang term for what World War I had called 'shell shocked.' The psychological walking wounded. Usually harmless, often unpredictable.
"He's looking around a lot. Xtian spotter?"
"Let's jack him up at the control point."
The sergeant spoke into his radio.
###
About half a mile further down, there was another barbed wire fence across the road, double gate, almost the same as the first.
Beyond it, now there was a line.
And the line was moving, but slowly.
New signs.
"KEEP YOUR HANDS IN SIGHT. KEEP YOUR HANDS IN SIGHT. IF THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU DOES NOT HAVE THEIR HANDS IN SIGHT, THEY AND YOU ARE GOING TO BE SHOT. MAKE THEM KEEP THEIR HANDS IN SIGHT!"
But many people were carrying things.
There was a concrete and sandbag assembly in the middle of the road, with a pit dug into the shoulder.
In it stood a man. With a mustache.
The mustache made him remember something.
He didn't want to remember anything any more.
But the man-with-a-gun was looking at everyone carefully, wearing a radio and headset with his rifle in his hands and a transmit button on the front trigger guard.
He was one of these California soldiers.
The first one he had seen.
Who promptly growled, "Move along!"
So he did.
###
"Yeah, sarge, he's hinky. Now or after search?"
"After search."
###
There were tents against the hot sun, and tables, and signs.
Another California soldier.
Several other soldiers. They wore armbands with a G letter on them. They did not have guns but they carried themselves with a purpose and they had white sticks on their belts.
Everyone had to put their stuff on the table. Then walk over to be patted down by a 'G.' Then walk back and show their stuff to another, alert G.
The Californian moved around a lot.
As he watched, he walked forward to take the first Californian's place in the chicken pit.
Why did he know what a chicken pit was?
He was starting to remember things.
And he didn't want to.
"Put your stuff on the … never mind … walk over there, stand with your feet on the foot prints and stick your arms out to either side."
He did. The search found only a knife. He was mildly surprised when the 'G' did not steal it, but gave it back instead, with a kindly "Put it in your back pocket please."
Please.
That was not a word he had heard for a very long time.
###
[To be continued…]
no subject
Date: 2020-03-09 09:03 pm (UTC)There was a water station, where coffee mugs of water were served by people wearing vests and a single glove. "DRINK!" said the sign, so he did.
After that, a nervous 'G' with a facial tic asked him to follow, so he did. There was a large tent, with a chair and a table, and two men in uniform seated on the other side of the table. One had a clipboard; the other a laptop computer. The G motioned him to sit in the chair, then took up position at the tent's rolled-up flap door.
"Name?"
It took an effort to dredge it up.
"Jason."
"Last name?"
He blinked slowly.
"Last name?" the soldier patiently repeated.
"Nesbitt."
"Spell it."
It took an effort.
"Date of birth?"
He gave it. It was annoying, but it was better than not answering.
"City and state of birth?"
Cleveland, Ohio.
"City and state of birth?"
"Sir?"
"Sir?"
"Hometown?"
"CLEVELAND! CLEVELAND GODDAMN IT!" he shouted, instantly causing the G to get out his stick and one of the two soldiers to put his hand on his pistol.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he babbled, and sat back down with his hands on his lap.
"We're sorry too. We have to ask these questions. There's a war on, and we saw you looking around at the defenses. What was your occupation?" Pause. "What did you do for a living?"
He blinked. He wasn't going to say anything. He wasn't going to lose his temper again. And worse than thinking, he was remembering.
It was very painful.
"Search him," the soldier commanded suddenly, and three additional Gs came into the tent, stood him up, had him put his hands on the back of the chair, and carefully went over him from head to toe.
The knife. A Red Lion ration bar wrapper. A shoe lace. A small scalpel blade wrapped in tape. A rag.
Nothing else. No weapons, no electronics.
"Sir, he's got tattoos."
This drew instant hard attention from both soldiers.
One got up to look.
He did not resist as the Gs took off his jacket and shirt. He didn't want them torn.
"Goddamn," said one of the soldiers.
His left shoulder was tattooed with the Maltese Cross. The symbol of the American fire service.
His right shoulder had a eagle holding a ribbon. The ribbon read 9-11-01.
The soldier at the laptop typed, typed again.
Now with one G standing on each side of him, he was permitted to put his shirt and jacket back on.
"Where did you graduate high school? What was your last address? What was your father's name? What was your mother's name? Where did you go to community college? What kind of car did you drive?"
He gave the answers. They meant nothing.
The one soldier showed the laptop to the other.
He nodded grimly.
"Jason, we've determined that you're not a threat to our mission. We are going to take a picture of you, and your prints. Then we are going to let you go. It's important that you not go back south for the duration of the War. Do you agree to that, to keep going north?"
He nodded.
They took their pictures, including close ups of the tattoos. There was a device for taking the prints, which fed into the laptop.
The two soldiers talked to him some more. They didn't ask questions, so he didn't say anything.
"You know, Medical could really use him."
"Not like this they can't. He's not a paramedic, he's a casualty."
The words woke something up in him.
Medical.
Paramedic.
Casualty.
They gave him a piece of thick paper with some writing on it. He didn't read it.
"When you get to North Folk, give this card to the duty officer at the control point. We'll see what we can do for you then. You got some water? Are you hungry?"
Of course he was hungry.
They gave him two ration bars and sent him out of the tent.
He was in time to see what happened next.
###
The man had been carrying two buckets, one in either hand. But lots of refugees carried buckets.
But he mumbled to himself, and stank.
The buckets stank. A harsh acrid smell.
Someone heard what he mumbled, and she moved away from him.
He started to approach the inner guard. He'd already passed the chicken pit.
The soldier had been talking on radio.
He shifted his grip on his rifle.
The man mumbled louder.
"The power…" mumble "… compels…"
Several times a shift, something happened that caused the soldier to bring his rifle to low ready. It was nearly always nothing.
But there was a reason why the danger positions - the chicken pit, the control point - rotated every thirty minutes.
He listened harder, not quite pointing his rifle.
"…you. The power of Christ…"
Oh shit.
"YOU MAN STOP! PUT THE BUCKETS DOWN!" the soldier screamed as he brought his rifle to his shoulder.
People moved out of the way. They knew what happened next when men pointed guns.
The man threw the bucket in his right hand past the soldier. It landed behind him.
He did not throw the bucket in his left hand. He dropped it when the soldier shot him, again and again and again.
Both buckets landed with a crunch and tinkle, as if they had contained thin glass bottles.
They had.
The bucket plastic lid flew off and a disgusting green slime surged out, as if squeezed from some hidden reservoir.
The soldier dropped his rifle as iron bands tightened around his chest and his vision blurred then went black. He tasted burning. His lungs filled with burning. He tried to spit, and threw up, and pissed and shat involuntarily. He tried to hold his breath and crawl sideways.
He failed.
###
From fifty yards away, the other side of the control point, Jason saw the buckets
And what surged out of them.
With a diamond hard clarity, the mist of years cleared away. And all his skills came back to him, in a painful epiphany made of rage and pain and overwhelming fear and imminent deadly threat.
"Hydrogen sulfide! Hydrogen sulfide! RUN RUN RUN!"
And Jason ran, as he kept shouting.
But he ran as firefighter-paramedics do.
Towards.