#hc_past

[scout-bennett]

I am become Death | Task 001

Charlie was about a month and a half from his nineteenth birthday the first time he pulled the trigger and ended a life. It was little more than a silenced recoil, a body falling a thousand yards away, a confirmation of the kill from his spotter. Just about the only way you could be more detached from the death you created was to be the one ordering the war in the first place. "Hey.” The numbness he felt was interrupted by a sharp jab to his shoulder. He turned, feeling like he was swimming through molasses, struggling to focus on his spotter. “It’s them or us, kid. It’s them or us.”

Over the next six years, Charlie put a bullet in every head he was ever ordered to, learning detachment between what he did and who he was. He learned to pack himself up in a little box in the back of his mind, keep that part of himself separate. The part that played Call of Duty with his brother and dried the dishes with his mom and worked on his first car with his dad and escorted his sister and her friends to the mall when he was on leave. Charlie was not a killer. Charlie was that--a son and brother and friend. Sergeant Bennett was the killer, and it was he who survived, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. It amused him that sometimes the weight of the world weighed 16.56 pounds.

It’s them or us, kid. It’s them or us. Breathe in, aim, breathe out, squeeze. Repeat. The silence echoed around him, the coppery scent of blood stinging his nostrils. Three bodies fell to the floor, bloodied mouths gaping in silent cries. The soft, oatmeal-colored carpet of the hall seeped black as the blood coagulated in thick clots. Mom would be pissed. But it was her blood. Dad always hated than I kept this thing in the house. He turned over the M1911 in his hands, looking at it as if he’d never seen one before. The barrel was still warm. Always said it was gonna kill someone. 

Tucking the gun down the back of his jeans, he turned on his heel to retreat back into his room. A minute later, he was picking his way down the hall of his childhood home, pack and duffle in hand. Pulling the front door closed behind him, he tossed his bags in the back of his dad’s truck, fishing the keys out of his pocket. He’d head to the recruitment station, see if he could join back up with a unit. A last glance at the little yellow house in the rearview would be the last time he saw the place, before it burned to the ground along with the rest of the city, several months later. Charlie would never come home again.

[scout-bennett]

Journal: Day #561-ish

I can’t believe it’s been a year an a half...

I don’t think I’ll ever forget how it started. My dad was on call practically 24/7 as power grids went down one by one across the city. We didn’t see him for days. Three days after the power went down, Maddie disappeared. She went down to the end of the street to talk to the crew working on the power, and never returned. We were frantic, plastering the neighborhood with her picture.

Then my dad came home. The fever burned him from the inside out. If only it had actually burned him to ash. My mother, Joe... they didn’t stand a chance. I threw away the shirt I was wearing somewhere between the Nevada border and Vegas. I never could get the bloodstains out.

I’ve got a few dozen miles left to go before I can start searching. A few dozen miles between me and where Katie last said she was. In a few hours, the sun will be up, and I’ll start moving again. I ought to sleep, but it’s nearly impossible when I can hear the groans on the rabids on the floors below me. The only thing between me and them is a shattered staircase. Pray to God they don’t learn how to climb.

Witchita Falls, here I come.