Sadly right now I have no access to all of the books I was working on before my computer died. Arg!
I'm trying to get everything sorted out. In the mean time, take a gander at a book I am working on on another computer. Keep in mind it still hasn't been edited yet...That's only when the book is complete.
Chapter 1
There it was again. A bright summer day. Flocks of children rummaging around the ground. The record player spurting classical music with some man on a saxophone while some voluptuous woman spilled her heart out with every word that sprawled out of her reddened lips.
“Dinner’s ready!” She called out in her angelic voice, her ripe white hand which had been working to the bone pressing up against her mouth to let the sound travel. The kids didn’t mind. They were all too happy to spring up from their game of jacks and marbles games and make an innocent dash for the wooden table.
“Ah, ah, ah,” He said, slapping the cap off of a few brewskies for him and his friends while his wife poured herself a glass of sweet Merlot wine. “Kids, go wash yo hands befo suppuh. Nah I do believe I done told you once already. Listening to their father, lips licking, aching to get at the turkey that was displayed on the table, they all made their way for the two-story house on the hill.
The sun was setting but it would follow up on its promise to give them ample time for their meal. Orange light bathed the fields in front of their white wooden cottage, four children eagerly pushing each other aside to be the first to wash up.
With a small grin she sang as she set the table, the record player her aide at sanity. “Days go by…days go by…No one gets younger, but you always remained at my door…waiting for me and no one else…standing in the rain just to see a glimpse of me.”
The man smiled and set his beer down, wrapping his arms around his lady and giving her lips a small peck before whispering, “You always did love that song.”
“How could I ever forget it, Charles? Every time it was raining I always saw you sta-“
Boom
Mike was thrown to the side, his helmet colliding with Edward’s. The slapping of the metal sent a vibration right down into his head causing a slight ringing in his ears.
Edward, with his arm across Mike’s back, pried him off while screaming, “Get the fuck off of me you nitwit!”
His eyes were wide open. Not having heard what the other man said, Mike grasped hold of the rail that was used for keeping one in their seat and jerked himself forward until he was in a sitting position with the help of Edward’s shoving. At first he couldn’t see, but that all changed when a red light started to sound off right behind him.
Squinting, Mike turned around, spinning his head frantically left and right as screams and orders invaded his own personal space, of which there really wasn’t any at that time.
“Smith down!” Someone called out while pointing all the way to the back of the plane.
All heads turned, hands grasping feverishly for the railing above them. “Get a medic on him, stat!” The chief commander called out as he took a leap to his feet.
Nodding, the man with the reddened plus sign on his helmet jumped up but was soon thrown into the air as the airplane gave another jerk, a large explosion ripping their hearing from their heads. Instinctively Mike let go of the railing and slapped his palms over his lugholes only to be thrown once again on Edward. Always a hardened man, Ed grabbed the boy’s face and threw it, like a baseball, away from himself.
“Get someone else’s shoulder!” He cried and then rested his hand again on the pipe just above them all.
The medical officer, quick to his feet though definitely banged and bruised up with a bloody nose and a slight concussion, grappled with the feet along both sides of the seats, using them as bars in which he slowly dragged himself over to the injured man who had been flung all the way to the back.
“For God’s sake, men! Keep your hands on the rail at all time! We’ve been over this!” The sergeant screamed, his loud vocals being inhumanly shattering to all those in the chassis of the plane.
Despite the red light flashing right behind Mike, every so often a loud explosion would set off and a bright flash would light up the sky, a bit of that beaming into their own plane through the window.
“What the fuck is going on out there?” A scrawny boy, scared to death at only the age of 15, asked as he grappled with his Garand rifle, hugging it close to his chest as though it made the world of difference to his wits. He was relatively near the front of the plane so it took no great effort for the sergeant to hear him.
“What the fuck do you think is going on out there you putz?” The reply came from the only man daring to look out the window. Sergeant Rye was a tough man who never took shit from anybody. He knew more than the average Joe and was quick to note things, such as the fact that half of his recruits were under the age of 18, all rearing to fight in the war and lying on their applications. It was an honorable fear, but having had the experience of many men, he knew that the most unreliable person was the 15 year old next to you in a foxhole. With this attitude he never had a kind word for them.
Another explosion ripped through the air. This one shook their own airplane, forcing it to jerk a foot to the right. One could have sworn that for a split second it had been daytime. The fact was, though, that it was really the small hours of the morning.
A man in the front of the plane, clutching his legs as he bent over, was bawling his eyes out. He too was another teenage recruit. “God help me. God help me. Jesus Christ. Come on. I swear I’ll go to church and pray-“
Sergeant Rye grabbed hold of the kid and screamed directly into his ear, “Do you see God out there? The only people out there are the Germans! Now you go out there and fucking help yourself!” The man was fuming at the mouth. Mike, who watched as this happened, got the instant recognition of Déjà vu, seeing a rabid dog in the face of their leader. With his hand on the back of the young boy’s collar, the strong, grown man lifted him to his feet and, kicking the door open, threw him out of the plane.
For a second everyone was stunned, their eyes as wide as plates, their hands gripping their guns so hard that they could almost bend the metal of the barrels. With a grunt as though it were all a play, the sergeant took two steps back and looked towards all the cat eyes that glared at him.
“What the fuck are you Goddamn idiots waiting for? Get your asses out there now!” He said as he grabbed another young recruit, this one around the age of 17, and threw him right out of the plane’s door. For a split second they were all blank, but it started to occur to them that this was the real deal. For the past six weeks they had been crawling through mud, doing push ups, and firing rifles. Nothing was ever shooting back at them. The second they took a step out of the airplane they were cannon fodder. Anything goes. “Now, now, now!” Sergeant Rye screamed as he pointed to the door and waved for more people to come.
With no delay, almost like robots who had just gotten their commands, they all jumped up and formed a line in the tight space they were provided in the isle between the bench on the left and the right. “Go! Asses out! Bottoms down!” Their leader screamed as he physically pushed his recruits out of the airplane door.
In front of Mike was a man named Jimmy. Behind him was the brute of a man, Edward. The man was literally over 250 pounds of all muscle. He was so large that he could hold two submachine guns at once and fire them both off at the same time without having to worry about recoil. It was a common joke around camp that no gun would give him kick because then he’d beat the shit out of it, and they didn’t want that. Not from Edward.
Like a true warrior, Jimmy marched forward, Rye’s hand on his back, when all of a sudden a large explosion rocked them all. A horrendous, repetitive beeping sound began to roll out of the cockpit. Within seconds the plane was in a full nosedive towards the ground, the air creating a loud rummaging sound to mask the beeping. Grasping onto the rail, Mike’s skin was pressed right up against his face, his teeth bearing as his eyes squinted and almost instantly dried. He couldn’t keep them open. The wind was too much.
In the back of the plane came horrendous screams. They were too late. They couldn’t make it to the door. In Mike’s head, though, it clicked that he could. Gritting his pearl whites as the cross, which was strapped around his neck, stuck right into his cheek and stayed there as the wind piled him, he grabbed out in the darkness of his closed eyes and took a defiant grip on the doorframe, hoisting himself forward. He had always been a strong kid, but this one was beyond him. Adrenaline was the miracle here.
Looking to the side, Mike grabbed a hold of the sergeant’s jacket strap, the strap that connected his parachute to his back, and gave it a great yank, throwing the man out of the airplane. It was karma. He had been throwing so many people out, now it was his turn. At first the man’s body didn’t move, but with the help of the half conscious sergeant, the elder jumped out and immediately lifted into the air as the plane raced straight down towards the ground. The old man was one thing, but the 250 pound brute behind him was something totally different. Mike didn’t even take the chance to look back and see if Edward was still standing. There was no time. With the last amount of strength he had, the 18-year-old boy dug his nails and fingers deep into the metal and, with the grace of a sloth, hoisted himself out into the open air.
The air double-timed against his face. His eyes couldn’t open and his mouth couldn’t close. A steaming whiff of burnt metal and char brushed up against his face and entered his lungs. All he could sense were the vibrations in the air as airplane after airplane raced past him towards the ground. Wrestling with the oxygen that had done such a good job of keeping him alive for his whole life, he now fought for the buckle on his parachute. Instead of reaching an arm out, Mike slid his hand along his jacket until his fingers looped into a hook. In panic he ripped it out.
Instantly Mike was jerked upwards. His lungs gave a flip and his heart smacked against his ribcage, but he was still alive. As tears ran down his face both from the trauma to his eyes and the injustice against humanity that was being performed and the fact that he was right in the middle of it, he cracked his lids open just slightly enough to see his own plane burst into a smoldering mushroom as it struck the ground as one big heap of metal.
The noise of the siren inside of the plane was gone, but a whole new sound filled the air. Bullets whizzed and ripped past Mike. As he stayed as still as possible, almost mistakable for a statue, lead slashed and cut the sides of his arms and legs, trickles of blood staining his uniform. If he moved even an inch he could put any part of him in harms way.
Flat ground couldn’t come soon enough, though it never came at all. Unable to turn his parachute in any direction, the trees below him began to look less and lees like patches and more and more like thousands of daggers laughing at him in the early morning as they snatched and sliced at him. As he descended into a tree that seemed taller than most others, he flailed about to try and wave off the branches that struck and poked him. “Fuck France!” He bellowed as he twisted and turned. The parachute was tangled at the top of the tree. Eager to free himself, knowing he was a target just waiting to be shot, he began to tug and pull on the ropes connected to his backpack. Mike continued until he heard a sudden large snap. Again the air brushed against his face as he plummeted for the ground before landing with one leg on each side of a thick branch. His eyes crossed and he fell into the brush below him, his hands grasping his nads as he shook. He was sure that something had popped.
While lying there, bullets flung left and right. In the background were odd explosions and seemingly only a few feet away were guns going off before horrendous screams were heard followed by silence. Mike had no idea where he was, having paid more attention to the trees than anything else. Still quivering from the shock and pain of his bruised egos, his 18-year-old eyes peeped out above the tall grass. It was hard to see anything, but every so often an explosion would light the way.
To Mike’s surprise there was a house not one hundred feet away from him. The only bad part about this was that the lights were on. Regardless of if there was a parade going by, it was the one checkpoint he knew at the current time. If he turned around and marched back into the darkness he might never find his way. Lifting himself in a crouched position, the private took one step forward before falling flat into the ground, his head down and his automatic Tommy gun two feet away. The cause of his sudden drop was the worst thing imaginable at that time.
“Ich sehe es,” a voice called out. “Wir müssen schauen sie,” the other replied.
Two Germans, or what Mike could only figure as Germans, had opened the door right as he had raised himself out of the grass on his journey towards the big house. They were monsters of men. Larger than life. In their black and gray suits they looked like the Devil himself, though Mike had gotten just a split second look before eating mud.
Apart from that there was nothing. With his eyes closed and his nose puffing grains of dirt into the air, he lay there on the ground shaking. Were they still outside? What were they doing? If only all the noise from the surrounding area would quiet down he would be able to hear. Inhaling, a grain of sand slipped up into Mike’s nose. It quickly made its way into his lungs and embedded itself seemingly in the worst place it could find, hoping to cause him trouble. With wide eyes and a closed mouth, the young recruit began to cough wildly though keeping it in to where his chest pounced up and down as his lips held tight to each other, his hands clinched. Immediately, down to the millisecond, the coughing ceased as the young man heard a leaf of grass break in two.
“Hier ist es,” he heard. “Wo ist die stelle?”
“Ist der Mann tot ist, denken sie?” He heard in reply. The two voices were very different. Unlike the boys that he had been with on the airplane before it had gone into a plummet, these men were old brutes with gruff and guttural vocals.
“Gehen sie zurück innen. Hier Nichts,” he heard. What did it all mean? It was so foreign. The words alone sent chills down his on a particularly cold night. As Mike lay there, he could feel the cold metal of his chain sinking into his neck. Was Jesus with him? Or was the cross just a device that could possibly get him caught or killed now or later on? He didn’t know whether to rip it off or to keep it on, but at that moment he knew just to lay still.
Biting into his lips, the camouflage was his only defense. Mixed in with the darkness, it was all he had. The Germans for their part gave a few more undecipherable words and then turned back for the house when suddenly Mike heard the clinking of metal against metal.
“Eh,” one German said.
“Hm?” The other one replied.
Mike heard a scuffle as one man sunk to his knees, fishing along the ground with one hand. Another explosion filled the sky. As his head was turned towards the two darkened men, the flashing of the fire defined their outline. The man on the ground looked up as a comet of metal hurled just overhead. Light streaked across Mike’s eyes. Shaking in the uniform that clung to his body, his hand gently crept downward from the ground towards the 1911 pistol at his side.
The German man kneeling in the dirt, oblivious to the fact that an American soldier was not a foot away, grasped a hold of Mike’s Tommy gun and whispered back to his friend, “Maschinengewehr.”
“Amerikaner?”
“Ja.”
The two men kept their voices low despite the fact that noise was coming from all around them.
“Gehen Sie zu haus,” the standing man whispered. With a nod in the blackness the kneeling man rose, his hand grasping his newfound trophy by the middle of the weapon, half way between the end of the barrel at the butt of the gun, he crept forward using the light in the house as a beacon.
Twitching his top lip as he squinted to see in front of himself, Mike popped the cap on his pistol’s holster and, with a delicate cautiousness, slipped the .45 out of its holder. As he felt the tip of the scope on the end of the barrel graze the leather of the pelt that held it, his heart began to race even faster. Though it was a cold night the back of his neck felt as though it was on fire, nothing able to put out the flames. Every few seconds a flash across the sky would illuminate the ground, and as he looked towards the house he could see the two men brighten up, their backs pointing his way.
Shooting targets was one thing, but here were two living creatures in front of him. Being only a young chap, still in his teens, it scared the hell out of him, even if he was the one doing the shooting. Back at base it was easy to say that he was willing to kill any man who tried to take his life, though he never did as he was an extremely modest person by nature, it was much different here where not only was it possible to duck hunt with two men that were clueless to his position, but it was also necessary.
Trembling, Mike turned himself until his knees rested in two little holes that his bones bore into the wet mud. Sliding himself to his feet he kept in a crouched position, scooting forward all the while being careful not to step on any twig or step on any specific grass that could give his position away. Raising his hand, the pistol gripped inside of his palms, which were beyond sweating, a waterfall dripping to the ground, he narrowed his eyes and took aim.
Mike put a slight bit of pressure on the trigger, his throat flexing, his neck burning, and his body expelling liquids from every hole imaginable. The eyes in his head were teary when he needed them the most, his head ached as though he had been swatted with a plank and nail, and his joints each twinged with a false set of pseudo-arthritic pain. The man was conscious the whole time of how deep the trigger was being pulled back. He couldn’t just go popping off shots into the night. Not only did he have to wait for another explosion to brighten the field ahead of himself up, but he had to aim correctly, fire off two shots only, and mask them with the sound of some machine’s noise working in the near distance lest he alert the men still in the house, if there were any, that danger was near. The last thing he needed was ten Germans sprawling out of the abode.
The flashes had been going off ever since he landed, but now they seemed to be on a stale mate with what needed to be done. For what seemed like minutes there was no light. The field was pitch black and the Germans were only getting further away. Taking the initiative, deciding to possibly use line of sight when the men walked in front of his view of a window, Mike slipped to his right and wandered over twenty feet before hearing a heavy thud land behind him.
Not only had he heard it but so had the two Germans. Both spun around, their Mp 40’s raised, Mike’s Tommy gun flopping to the ground. Still there was no light.
“Wer ist da?” One man bellowed out.
“Sei ruhig!” The other one hissed.
It all added to Mike’s nerves. If they had just been shadows in the darkness, he would have had target practice. By asking a question it flooded the American’s mind that this was a personality in front of him. His lips trembled and his aim wavered. A deep breath was taken to steady himself.
There they were. Germans and an American. Both in the darkness. Both less than twenty feet away. Both aiming right at each other, yet neither knowing what to aim at or where.
Mike’s trigger finger got heavy. It would take split second timing to pull off anything. Now that they scowled in his certain direction, lying down on the ground would be foolish as his camouflage could only do so much. Moving out of their way would only cause them to notice movement and to fire upon it. The situation was a stalemate put forward by the divine himself and left to the three men of two different factions to fight it out, to test themselves as human beings and as soldiers of God. “If God before us, who is against us?” But what if God was for none of them?
Instantly a spark lit up the surroundings. The Germans, wide-eyed, caught just a glimpse of Mike before he drilled just one hole in each man before pausing as the two bodies dropped like bricks in midair.
He had done it, but he wasn’t ashamed. The adrenaline inside of his body prevented his emotions from pulling back to weep for the fallen soldiers. For the fallen human beings. They were all fighting the same war. Mike could feel the sudden tide in himself as he went from simple farm boy to man in that very instant. Lowering the pistol, the American, still in his crouched angle, scurried over to the two men.
One was clearly dead. He moved not a millimeter. Mike could see the glare of the moon shining off of the submachine gun. Its barrel pointed away. It wasn’t going to move any time soon.
The other one, the man who had grabbed Mike’s Tommy gun, coughed and gargled on his own blood. Despite the other not moving, this one wiggled and squirmed on the ground as though the American was no matter at all. He knew he had been seen already. He knew the American had taken the action and that the little duel was over. Coughing and gasping, his hands clutched his throat as blood squirted out of his veins and flowed over the side. Upon Mike’s arrival, the man’s hands were coated in a thick liquid that glowed in the light of the moon.
Mike rushed to the poor fellow right after giving a glance around to see if anyone else was there. Dropping to his knees he grabbed hold of the man’s hand and squeezed. “God I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” He whimpered. The adrenaline that had buffed him up and had shooed away his fight or flight syndrome had now come back with a vengeance, resurrected by his deeds. The soldier dropped his gun on the ground next to him and grasped the bloodied German claw with both of his hands, squeezing and blubbering. The farm boy was all of a sudden back.
His legs kicked spontaneously as his voice tried to moan in agony, but all that came out were liquidated coughs; right up until the time he slowly ended his kicking and lay there motionless, his eyes towards Heaven.
The only remaining soldier had the same feeling as though he had just been caught by his father. He remembered the lashing he used to get and could still feel them on his ass as he looked down at the silhouette on the muddied ground. With a sniffle Mike slowly rested the limp paw on the supposed corpse’s chest before crawling over to his weapons, picking them up. He had to search around for his rifle as it had bounced a bit as it had been flung and was a good three feet away. Another explosion rocked the sky as another heap of smoldering iron crashed somewhere nearby. Grasping the weapons, the soldier sat there a moment, finding himself as he looked up towards the house. It looked just like his farmhouse back home from the angle he sat in. There was the cow pen, and there were the pigs. And the chicken nest; oh how he loved to play with the chickens.
Inside of himself it was a battle. He had already done a service to the United States by killing two soldiers against his freedom. How much was enough? How much until he fulfilled his duty? Would it always be this hard to swallow? Grabbing his Tommy gun after sheathing his pistol, Mike slipped to his feet, tears running involuntarily down his face though his vision was fine and his face was calmed and relaxed, he did the only thing he could do. With a gun in his
