I studied the man I’d come so far to find. He was stick thin, without a spare ounce of fat on him, as though all such physical weakness has been burned away in some spiritual kiln. He had sharp, aesthetic features under close-cropped hair, and even though he was sitting perfectly still and at ease, he blazed with barely suppressed nervous energy. His spotlessly clean Army uniform hung loosely about him, as though it had once fitted a much larger man. His smile was slight but genuine, and his eyes were disturbingly sane.
I nodded slowly, to the man I’d been sent to kill. I never know what to say, on occasions like this. All my old certainties had been thrown down and trampled into the dirt, but still some small spark of stubborn pride wouldn’t allow me to blurt out the obvious question. Major Kraus just smiled and nodded back at me, as though he quite understood. I had no gun or knife. Dead hands had taken all my weapons from me, before I was allowed down the ladder into the underworld. I could still kill him with my bare hands. I’d been trained. But if I should fail…I didn’t want to die here. Not in this awful place, where the dead didn’t stay dead.
That would be terrible: to die, and still not know peace.
Kraus gestured easily for me to sit down. A calm, casual gesture, from a man who knew he held all the power in the room. Just for a moment, the major reminded me of the CIA man, back in Saigon. I sat down. Kraus smiled again, just a brief movement of the lips, revealing stained yellow teeth.
“Yes,” he said. “They’re dead. They’re all dead. The ones who brought you here, the ones who stand guard, and the ones I send out to kill my enemies. Dead men walking, every single one of them, torn from their rest, raised up out of their graves, and set to work by me. Everyone’s dead here, except me. And now, you. Tell me your name, soldier.”
“Captain Marlowe,” I said. “Torn from my cell, raised up from my court-martial, and sent here by the CIA to kill you, Major Kraus. They’re frightened of you. Of course, if they knew what you were really doing here…”
“There’s nothing they can do to stop me. My army is made up of men who are beyond fear, or suffering, who cannot be stopped by bullets or bombs or napalm. Zombies, Captain Marlowe. Old voodoo magic, from the deep south of America, where the really old ways are not forgotten. You needn’t worry, Captain, they won’t attack you. And they certainly won’t try and eat you, as they did in a cheap horror movie I saw, before I came out here. Into the real horror show, that never ends… My men have no need to eat, any more than they need to drink, or piss, or sweat. They are beyond such human weaknesses now. They have no appetites, no desires, and the only will that moves them is mine. I give them purpose, for as long as they last. They are my warriors of the night, my weapons cast against an uncaring world, my horror to set against the horror men have made of this place.
“War…is too important to be left to the living.”
“Of course,” I said numbly. “The perfect soldiers. The dead don’t get tired, don’t get stopped by injuries, and will follow any order you give them, without question. Because nothing matters to them any more.”
“Exactly,” said Kraus, favoring me with another brief smile. “I just point them in the right direction, and let them roll right over whatever lies in their path. They destroy everything and everyone, like army ants on the march. Most people won’t even stand against them any more; they just turn and flee, as they would in the face of any other natural disaster. And if I should lose some men, through too much damage, I can always make up the numbers again, by raising up the fallen enemy dead.
“You’re not shocked, Captain Marlowe. How very refreshing.”
“‘Why this is Hell, nor am I out of it,’” I murmured. “I have seen worse things than this, Major. Done worse things than this, in my time.”
He leaned forward across his desk, fixing me with his terribly sane, compassionate gaze. “Yes…I can see the darkness in you, Captain. Tell what you saw, and what you did.”
“I have been here before,” I said. “In country, in the dark and terrible place where the old rules mean nothing, and so you can do anything, anything at all. Because no matter how bad we are, the enemy is always worse. I’ve seen much scarier things than zombies, in country.”
“I’m sure you have,” said Kraus. “They have no idea what it’s like here-the real people back in their real world. Where there are laws and conventions, right and wrong, and everything makes sense. They can’t know what it’s like here, or why would fathers and mothers allow their sons to be sent into Hell…and then act all surprised when the command structure breaks down, army discipline breaks down, and their sons have to do awful, unforgivable things just to stay alive? What did you do, Captain, to earn a mission like this?”
“I wiped out a whole village,” I said. “Killed them alclass="underline" men, women and children. And then refused to say sorry.”
“Why, Captain? Why would you do such a thing?”
For the first time, I was being asked the question by someone who sounded like he actually wanted to hear the truth. So I considered my answer seriously. “Why? Because I wanted to. Because I could. No matter what you do here, the jungle always throws back something worse…I don’t see the enemy as people any more, just so many beasts in the jungle. The things they’ve done…they give the jungle’s dark savagery a face, that’s all. And after a while, after you’ve done awful, terrible things in your turn, and it hasn’t made a damned bit of difference…you feel the need to do more and more, just to get a response from that bland, indifferent, jungle face. You want to see it flinch, make it hurt, the way it’s hurt you. That need drives you on, to greater and greater acts of savagery…until finally, you look into the face of the jungle…and see your own face looking back at you.”
“I know,” said Major Kraus. “I understand.”
I sat slumped in my chair, exhausted by the force of my words. And Kraus smiled on me, like a father with a prodigal son.
“It’s the curse of this country, this war, Captain. This isn’t like any other war we ever fought. There are no real battle lines, no clear disputed territories, no obvious or lasting victories. Only a faceless enemy, an opposing army and a hateful population, prepared to do anything, anything at all, to drive us out. Any atrocity, any crime against nature or civilization, is justified to them because we are outsiders, and therefore by definition not human.
“There is only one way to win this war, Captain, and that is to be ready and willing to do even worse things to them. To embrace the darkness of the jungle in our hearts, and in our souls, and throw it in their faces. We tried to raise a light in the darkness, when we should have eaten the darkness up with spoons and made it ours-given it shape and purpose and meaning. I have done an awful and unforgivable thing here, Captain, but for the first time I am making progress. I am taking and holding territory, and I am forcing the enemy back.
“I will win this war, which my own superiors are saying cannot be won. I will win it because I am ready and willing to do the one thing the enemy is not willing to do. They are ready to fight us to the death, but I have made death a weapon I can turn against them. And after my dead warriors have subjugated this entire country, North and South, and I have won because not one living soul remains to stand against me… Then, then, I will take the war home. I will cross the great waters with a dead army millions strong, and I will turn them loose on the streets of America, turn them loose on all those uncaring people who sent their children into Hell.