That’s all I knew and it was enough.
Obviously, the Air Force was still spraying the shit. I had a good idea why we were supposed to waste that village.
“Maybe we should turn back,” I said to Barber.
He shook his head as I knew he would. “I’ll take point,” he said. “Don’t touch any of that crap.”
“Goddammit, Davis, what is that shit?” Roshland demanded.
“Bad-ass defoliant,” I told him and moved out.
The jungle thinned out as we went, dry and dead. Laughing Man was sticking to the canvas of our boots like mucus. The ochre fog was everywhere. We were breathing it in. I could feel it burning my throat and nasal passages. It was too late to turn back by then; we were all contaminated.
Land of the dead? Goddamn right.
About that time, Barber and Roshland started getting to me.
I knew I was tired and possibly even messed-up on Laughing Man, but they were starting to look funny. Like they’d changed or something. They seemed thinner, their eyes never blinking. Their skin had a strange ashen hue to it. I hoped it was my imagination. I really did.
Roshland and I were following Barber single file, a good distance behind.
We could see him moving through the dead brush very cautiously. Suddenly, he stopped. He gave us a hand signal and crouched down behind a bush. Something was directly ahead and I had a pretty good idea it wasn’t the village. Roshland kept flashing me these odd grins every time I turned around. His eyes were glazed over. They were like the eyes of a dead fish on a beach. He looked like he was fucked-up on some of that nasty Cambodian shit… except worse.
Barber gave us another signal and we crept forward. It was just some freaking zipperhead with a rice-picker hat on. He was walking towards us, stumbling drunkenly.
He didn’t have any weapons that I could see. But there was something wrong with him—we all sensed that. I think maybe it was the way he walked, kind of shuffling as if he were blind, his hands clawing the air in front of him.
Barber told us to spread out, which we did, each of us crouching behind a dead bush.
The guy shambled forward and Barber stood up, waiting for him. His fingers were on the trigger of his Stoner. When the guy got within a few feet of him, we all saw what his problem was. He was blind. In fact, he didn’t have any eyes whatsoever, just two bloody sockets.
“Shiiiit,” I heard Roshland say.
Barber let go of his Stoner and snaked a hand behind him, clasping the grip of the machete he had slung on his rucksack.
The slope staggered right at him, his hands hooked into claws and waving wildly. Barber side-stepped him and the guy’s dough-white features were hooked in a manic sneer, lips pulling back from gnashing yellow teeth. It was then I noticed that his fingers were blood-stained, like maybe he’d torn out his own eyes. Maybe Laughing Man had shown him things he didn’t want to see.
Barber held the machete out in front of him.
My finger was sweating on the trigger of my AK. I had a bead drawn on the gook’s chest and I wanted to waste him, but Barber had his own ideas. He stepped into my field of fire like he knew what I was doing.
The gook made another unsuccessful lunge at him and Barber swung the machete at him. It went through the rice-picker hat with a crunch and split the crown of the head beneath like a melon. The gook went down, flopping and snapping his teeth like a mad dog. By all that I’d seen of men dying—and it was considerable—he should’ve been dead. But he wasn’t. He was on the ground, screaming and howling. Barber moved in for the kill, chopping and hacking at the guy’s head until there was nothing left above his shoulders but a few pounds of bloody meat.
When Roshland and I got there, Barber was just standing there studying the gored blade of his machete.
“Commander,” I said, “let’s go.”
Barber nodded, wiping his machete in the grass and sliding it back into its sheath. “Village should be over that next ridge,” he muttered.
Roshland was giggling.
We moved out together.
They were both fucked-up and I didn’t trust either of them, so I didn’t want them on point. And I didn’t want them behind me, so I didn’t walk point either. Barber didn’t object: he and command had parted company. I didn’t think there was any harm in us moving as a group; everything was dead.
As it turned out, Barber was right.
The village was just over the ridge. It wasn’t much. Just eight or ten hooches set up on stilts, a small stream, and a few feeble-looking paddies flanking the treeline. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. The air was still, soundless, not even the cry of a jungle bird disturbed it.
It was eerie.
And hot. Sweat was rolling off my brow and stinging my eyes. I prayed for a breeze, but none came. It wouldn’t have helped any; the heat wasn’t what was making me sweat—it was the hush, dead feeling of the place. I prayed then for normal worries. Even an ambush would’ve been welcome. After the other vil and what we’d seen since… I expected only the worst.
We emerged from a small stand of trees and set about checking out the hooches. I always hated crawling up those ladders and peering inside. Usually there was little more than a couple of children or an old woman huddled in the corner, but sometimes you found yourself staring down the barrel of a Russian rifle. That happened to me once. Whether it was fate or God or the tooth fairy, I don’t know, but the gook’s rifle jammed. I pulled him out of there and snapped his neck. I was lucky that day. Very lucky.
This time, however, they were empty.
A couple of wooden bowls and a straw mat or two were all that we found. And it was strange even finding those things. Usually, if the slopes abandoned a village for one reason or another, they’d take anything that wasn’t tied down and some things that were.
No, this was all wrong. They were around somewhere.
The knowledge of that really made me start to sweat.
After we re-grouped, Barber said, “I don’t understand this. I just don’t… know… I don’t know…”
“Bandits got ’em,” Roshland suggested.
“Bullshit,” I said. “Where are the bodies?”
He shrugged. “Out in the jungle. Who cares?”
“Let’s take another sweep around,” Barber said. “Then… then we’ll see… I guess…”
I just looked at him “Fuck that. I’m going to check the perimeter,” I told them. “Then I’m heading for the LZ with or without your sorry asses.”
Roshland shook his head. “Take it easy, bro. Everything’s cool here. Just mellow.”
“Damn yer black ass,” I said and moved off into the jungle.
There was a possibility I was freaking out, but I didn’t think so. Roshland and Barber were contaminated with Laughing Man and I was positive of that. I didn’t know how long I had until it got to me, too. I hadn’t opted to check the perimeter merely to satisfy myself that the area was safe… I had to get away from them. I couldn’t stand looking at them any longer.
They were starting to look like living dead men.
I was creeping around, moving from bush to bush, when I saw the hut. I wasn’t sure why it was set off in the jungle away from the others. Possibly, it was a weapons stash for the VC or just a food stash. I had to know either way. I approached it cautiously, my finger stroking the trigger of the AK. I checked around the door for any trip wires and went in. It was pitch black in there. Or had been. Now a shaft of sunlight sliced a path through the murk.
Thurman was in there.