*I'm probably going to publish this later*954Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR398eq4KYd
It was six AM in the morning. The moon still hung high in the sky.
Two years ago, it would’ve 0600. The sun would have been up by now. He would’ve been in the showers by now.
But that was two years ago.
Joe parked his car in the desolate parking lot and stopped the engine, which died with a sputtering roar.
Stepping out of the car, Joe stepped onto an open-faced, half-eaten jelly sandwich.
“Fuckin’ shit…” groaned Joe as he lifted his foot out of the moldy mess.
He increased his pace across the parking lot, which was illuminated by the light of a single streetlight that stood like a solemn sentinel of the solitary diner.
Once he reached the eating establishment, he pulled out his ring of keys from the right-hand pocket of his pants, which he had worn for two days before today.
After a minute of fumbling with his keys in the dim light of the streetlight, Joe finally found the correct key and made several attempts to open the door, eventually opening it on the last try.
Stumbling into the dark diner, Joe groped the walls for the light switch with only the moonlight and streetlamp light streaming through the window for guidance.
A nanosecond after a flicking the light switch on, the ceiling-mounted lights burst to life, blinding Joe for a few seconds.
As he blinked rapidly and adjusted slowly to the newfound brightness, Joe found a note taped to the greeter’s desk that read in large blue letters:
JOE COOK FIVE BATCHES OF COD FOR TODAY’S SPECIAL. TRASH SIGN AFTER READING.
Joe sighed, grabbed the crude letter, crumpled it into a ball, and stuffed it into his pocket.
He strolled through between the rows of empty tables and booths, humming to himself the whole time.
As he reached the kitchen, he turned on another set of lights. He swung open the swinging doors and entered the lifeless kitchen.
“Well, let’s light this bitch up!” exclaimed Joe to the user-less appliances as if they were his co-workers, though none of them found him likeable.
Joe walked over to the freezer and grabbed the handle.
He reached into the furthest back section of the icy compartment and pulled out a cardboard box marked, Frozen Cod Fillets.
Cod, he thought as withdrew a few, plastic wrapped fillets. Cod, Travis liked that shit.
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“C’mon! C’mon!” shouted Carl, clapping his hands above his head. “There’s five fatasses waiting for their fish! C’mon! Faster!”
Joe yawned as he lazily sprinkled a dash of pepper on the dish before him, on which a crispy, white fillet laid and another dash on the steaming French fries that lay around the fish.
“Hurry the fuck up!” shouted Carl to Joe. “You’re not getting paid to dick around!”
Joe quickly set the haphazardly arranged plate on the long metal counter in front of him that contained all the finished meals.
“Pass me the pepper, you lazy fucker!” yelled Hugh from a few meters behind Joe, who was frying a large batch of bacon. He wiped his greasy, blistered hands on his white apron, which was stained with various sauces and fluids.
Joe tossed the shaker of pepper into his impatient co-worker’s waiting hands, sprinkling the floor with a fine, black dust in the process.
The fryer hissed as the French fries goldened inside of it.
“Hurry up you fucktards! I’m not going to pay you for fucking around and taking long shits!” roared Carl. “Especially you, Joe!”
Another waiter rushed into the kitchen, dropping an empty tray and picking up another filled with three steaming plates of food before leaving.
Joe rushed over to check on the fries to grab a fresh batch for a new set of orders.
As he looked down into the depths of the fryer, a grease bubble burst like a grenade and scorched him.
Then another, accompanied by a constant popping, like gunshots.
Gunshots, thought Joe. Grenades.
He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, trying to block the recollections rapidly ascending from the mental depths which Joe had so painstakingly buried them in for two years.
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“Now all you bitches listen up!” barked the drill sergeant as he paced along the length of the assembled platoon, sporadically locking gazes with random soldiers.
Joe snapped his hands from his pockets to his sides.
“Ha, still looking for that fifty?” whispered Travis to Joe, keeping his eyes on the striding drill sergeant throughout his whole question. “Face it. It’s lost.”
“You little fuck-”
“We’re going to do a little exercise today!” barked the drill sergeant, disrupting the conversation. “And you’re all going to fuckin’ do it!”
“Hooah!” barked the entire platoon in unison.
“Good…” muttered the sergeant.
He paced in front of the platoon like a hungry wolf.954Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4FDHeuKsDf
“Permission to speak, drill sergeant?” requested Joe, straightening his back.
The drill sergeant’s head snapped to Joe’s position inside the formation and stared at him for a few moments.
“Permission granted. Make it jiffy, private.”
“Well, Private Herman’s been having a bit of a fever for the past couple days, and I don’t think he’ll be fit for action, sir.”
The drill sergeant stopped striding and turned his gaze to Travis.
“Private Herman! Are you a pussy?”
“Uhh- No, sir!” stuttered Travis.
A bead of sweat rolled down his clammy forehead. His hands shook at his side, compromising his otherwise rigid form.
“Good! Then you’ll be doing the exercise!” responded the sergeant, resuming his pacing. “Any more questions?”
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Another bubble burst and blasted Joe’s finger with scalding oil.
“Shit motherfucker!” yelped Joe as he jumped back from the fryer, holding his burned finger gingerly.
“Joe, you little pussy, get those fries out of there!” exclaimed Carl as he cleansed his hands on a grimy, gray towel that had once been as white as the cod meat.
Joe approached the fryer once again, and to his dismay, he realized that during his unforeseen reminiscence, he had burned roughly half the fries in the batch.
Without further delay, Joe lifted the half-ruined batch of fries out of the aged fryer in an attempt to salvage as many fries as he could from the disaster the assemblage had become.
“Hey, fucker, you really fucked up this time,” snickered Hugh as he started preparing another meal. “I hope he takes this out of your paycheck.”
Joe sprinkled the fries, burnt and unburnt, among several, fry-less plates lined up on the steel counter.
“Hey, has anyone seen the mortar around here?” asked Hugh, waving two greasy hands in the air for attention.
Several cooks, including Joe, looked up at him.
“You know, the mortar! The green, plastic one! You know what I’m talking about, fuckers!”
One by one, the cooks all shook their heads and turned back to their culinary projects.
But not Joe.
Mortar, he thought as the weakened bars of his brain’s prison gave way to the rabid memories that had been locked away for two years. Mortar.
The memories poured forth like a tidal wave, filling every spot of his conscience and existence.
Joe shook his head and pinched himself, trying to halt the tsunami that would inevitable crash down upon him.
But it was too late.
He was drowning.
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“Specter Twelve-Two, this is Hunter Five-Five actual,” crackled a voice over Joe’s MBITR radio. “We’re in position, over.”
“Hunter Five-Five, this is Specter Twelve-Two,” responded Joe into his radio. “Proceed to Alpha, out.”
“Hunter-Five-Five to Specter Twelve-Two, adjust fire, over,” responded the voice as blank gunfire erupted on the other side of the line.
“This is Specter Twelve-Two to Hunter Five-Five, adjust fire, out.”
“Grid ES 955 945, over,” informed the forward observer. The rapid blank gunfire on the other side intensified as the drill progressed.
“Grid ES 955 945, out,” drawled Joe as he checked the clear, plastic face of his digital watch.
“Twenty-eight insurgents in the open, over.”
“Twenty-eight insurgents in the open, out.”
“R, F, DPICM in effect, three rounds, over.”
“R,F, DPICM in effect, three rounds, out.”
“Shot, over.”
“Shot, out.”
Joe holstered his radio and cracked his knuckles, which were cloaked in black, combat gloves.
“C’mon, let’s shoot the damn thing,” said Travis as he effortlessly hoisted a fifteen-pound round over his shoulder. “The quicker we finish the mission, the quicker we can get to mess. Damn, if they don’t have those cod sandwiches today, I’m gonna be so pissed…”
“Sounds better than talking on the radio all day,” replied Joe, shrugging his shoulders. He yawned and stood up from the grassy patch on which he had been laying.
He unhurriedly strolled over to the three-foot-deep mortar pit which they had spent an hour digging and another thirty minutes fortifying with sandbags before the exercise had begun.
Travis leisurely strutted to the artillery piece, his armed wrapped around the shell that rested on his right shoulder.
“Shit, hurry up and put it in there,” snapped Joe.
He gestured towards the muzzle of the mortar.
“That’s what she said,” responded Travis, winking through his translucent ballistic eyewear.
He dropped the round into the tube.
“Now it wasn’t that bad, was it?” sighed Joe, as he checked his watch again.
To his disappointment, only a minute had passed.
The round hit the bottom of the smoothbore barrel, exploding the primer.
“Shit, has the round not fire-”
The mortar exploded.
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“One order of asparagus soup!” shouted a waiter as he rushed into the kitchen with a slip of paper.
He promptly left with a tray full of buffalo wings.
“Damn, it’s one of those vegan fuckers,” sighed Joe as he opened the fridge and pulled out a five-day-old bundle of asparagus.
After a brief rinsing, Joe placed the bundle on a wooden chopping block and reached above his head for a black pan.
“Hey, fucker, try not to burn the shit this time, okay?” jeered Hugh as he paused his walk across the kitchen with a steaming pot of soup.
“Why don’t you fuck off?” responded Joe as his anger expanded in his chest like a swelling balloon.
“Damn, did you eat a bowl of bitch flakes for breakfast?” replied Hugh, shocked at Joe’s sudden indignance.
Joe locked eyes with Hugh and stared deep into his irises, projecting forth only malice and rage from his eyes.
“Hey, fatasses, get back to work!” roared Carl from across the kitchen.
Hugh broke the stare.
“Yeah, get back to work. If you don’t, I heard there’s plenty of employment up at Campbell.”
Hugh tipped the pot slightly so that a bit of boiling soup poured onto Joe’s black, torn New Balance sneakers.
“Shit!” exclaimed Joe as the scalding liquid seeped through the thin leather and mesh of his shoes.
Hugh snickered as he walked away.
Joe groaned and laid the metal pan upon the chopping block.
He grabbed the bundle of asparagus and removed the first stock.
Fingering the green shaft with moist fingers, he effortlessly snapped the spear into two segments.
As he gripped the two segments, he felt as if he were gripping a thin neck; a fragile, breakable neck.
A neck like the Drill Sergeant’s.
A neck he had snapped effortlessly, remorselessly.
Joe dropped the shafts into the coal-black pan and clutched his head in an attempt to constrain the memories that were rising like hot-air balloons to the surface of his consciousness.
The sergeant deserved to die, whispered a small voice from the back of his mind. He sent Travis to his death. He should’ve never done the exercise.
Travis was just another number to the brass, just an accidental casualty to be swept under the rug with a three volley salute and a bugle.
“Joe, what the fuck’s wrong with you?” barked Carl who had unexpectedly shown up behind him. He shook Joe by the shoulders. “You seem a little rattled! I don’t think I need to make a call back up to base, do I? I heard they’ve got real good treatment for mental psychos like you!”
Joe stared at Carl’s face for a few seconds, trying to press down his rapidly inflaming tide of emotion.
“Well, what the fuck’re you lookin’ at, you dumbass grunt? Bet you left ‘cause you was too dumb even for the Army.”
Joe felt something snap.The glass cage that had contained the pent-up rage he had accumulated since Travis’s death exploded in a shower of shards.
He reached out and grabbed Carl’s head in both his hands.
“What the fuck’re you-”
Joe twisted, and with a sickening crunch, Carl dropped to the ground dead.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” yelped Hugh, groping in his pocket for his cellphone. “Are you insane?”
Joe locked eyes with Hugh, who cowered as he struggled to grip the rubber case of his cellphone in his clammy, quaking hands.
After a few silent moments, Joe broke the gaze, shoved open the kitchen doors, and rushed out of the diner.
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“9-11, what is the state of your emergency?”
“Damnit, check his pulse again! No?! Sorry, uh… one of our employees just broke our employer’s neck… I think he’s dead.”
“How do you know they’re dead?”
“We’re not feeling a pulse.”
“What’s the name of the victim?”
“Carl. Carl Dover.”
“Age of the patient?”
“I’m not sure… Fifty eightish? Nine?”
“What is your name?”
“Hugh Gerard.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yeah, the murderer kind of ran out of the restaurant.”
“Where is the location of your emergency?”
“Dover’s Diner, Three Eight Ninety, Johnson Road.”
“I’m sending police and ambulances on the way to help you right now.”
“God help us all. He’s batshit crazy.”
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“9-1-1, what is the state of your emergency?”
“Shit! Fuck! My neighbor just shot my husband through our kitchen window!”
“Where is the location of your emergency?”954Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXq7Os0OzOY
“Forty Eight Forty Eight Oaksville Court! Just send someone now!”
“What is your name?”
“Melissa Bullick!”
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I’m not really sure what happened. He just kind of ran into his house, pulled out his gun, and just popped off a shot at us. We were drinking coffee, and… oh shit, oh shit… Shit… if you don’t get here soon...”
“Are you with the patient now?”
“Yes, he’s in the kitchen. Half his fuckin’ head’s been blown off! Send someone immediately! Fuck, he doesn’t much time!”
“Calm down ma’am. I just need a few more bits of information. I need to know if the person still alive.”
“Yes, he’s still breathing.”
“Are you safe?”
“I think, at least for the time being.”
“Well, I’d advise you to get to cover or at least on the ground-”
“Oh shit! He’s shooting again!”
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Sweat flowed freely down Joe’s forehead, carving a river down the gently sloping plain.
The armpits of his grimy T-shirt were dank and moist, drenched in his nervous perspiration. The backside of the shirt clung to his back, adhered by his heat and the stickiness of his sweat.
Pacing back and forth along the hole-ridden, hardwood floor of the dilapidated house did little to alleviate the tension that hung in the air like a heavy cloud of poisonous gas; filling his lungs and suffocating him.
Joe paced to his shuttered window and stared out a little hole that a termite had eaten through the wooden shutters a year earlier.
Already, the police contingent surrounding his house had swelled to a formidable size, several dozen policemen strong, ranging from black-clad SWAT personnel to the lowliest of patrolmen. Alongside the decommissioned MRAPs and the classic Crown Victoria police cruisers were a couple news vans, mostly from local channels.
Through his peephole, Joe observed the movements of the policemen outside. They were assembling in a semi-organized team, most in preparation for their inevitable invasion of the house.
If Travis was still here, thought Joe as he scanned his malnourished lawn, this would be like every shitty-ass training exercise we did.
Joe stepped back from the window and grabbed his AR-15 rifle from its resting position on the scrap wood and duct tape table he had purchased from a yard sale a few months ago.
He draped the sling over his back and resumed pacing the room.
He could feel Travis pacing alongside him through the cramped kitchen.
If Travis was still alive, he would be here, thought Joe as his footfalls rang out across the desolate kitchen.
Suddenly, he heard a magnified, booming voice from across his front yard.
“You don’t have to make this any harder than it already is! We don’t want any harm, and I don’t think you do either!”
Joe rushed to his window, the black, plastic rifle bouncing on his back as he ran, and cracked open the pane and shutters. The sunlight streamed in like a laser, blinding and disorienting Joe with a few seconds.
After regaining his vision, Joe’s eyes immediately widened in alarm.
He immediately grabbed his rifle from its idle position on his back with his clammy, quaking hands.
A few policemen, mostly SWAT, had formed a breaching party and stood just a few feet from the front door of his house, breaching shotguns aimed at the doorknob.
From the safety of a cruiser, the police chief was crying out warnings and ultimatums through his plastic bullhorn.
“Lay down your weapons and come out on the lawn, and I can promise that none of us will get hurt! You don’t need to make this hard!”
In the corner of his eyesight, the police chief noticed a dull, emaciated figure rise up from a partially shuttered window.
The creature was clad in black, baggy clothes, with a black rifle in his hands. He looked more like a skeleton than a man, aged prematurely by years of stress and hardship.
The police chief wondered how any man could stand to wear such heavy clothing during such a hot day. The air felt like a sea of heat around him, a sea in which he was drowning. The man should have been roasted alive in such attire.
The chief presumed that he was the target.
“All you have to do is lay down your guns and-”
Crack!954Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhcRvb9B2Bg
The plastic stock of the rifle kicked back into Joe’s shoulder, and a round exited the fluted barrel of the rifle.
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The first round missed Sergeant Halbert’s head by a few feet.
“Shit!” he shouted. He would have jumped out of surprise if he could have, but the dozens of pounds gear weighed him down.
The shot had shaken him out of the heat induced stupor he had fallen into after waiting inactively at the target’s front porch. The sun had been roasting him alive in his black, multi-layered SWAT uniform, and Halbert had been on a double patrol shift the night before.
The lack of practice hadn’t helped much either. The last exercise in which he had participated had been at least five months ago, and the new monthly budget cuts had reduced his range time in half.
The following shot was far more accurate, missing only by a couple inches and imbedding itself in the poorly maintained lawn that sprawled out in front of the frail trailer home, which could’ve been knocked over by a mediocre gale.
Halbert looked to his right and saw the target, a bony, wild-eyed man, firing from an angle out the kitchen window of his home at Halbert’s breaching contingent.
“Shit, he’s firing!” shouted Hal, shoving his comrade in front.
“Oh fuck!” he responded and brought the stock of his carbine to his shoulder.
“We’re gonna breach!” exclaimed Hal to the entire group, waving a hand to attract the whole party’s attention and keeping the other on his submachine gun.
“Three…”
The frontmost policeman aimed the muzzle of his shotgun at the door knob, a breaching round in the chamber.
“Two…”
The man in the window started emptying his magazine as quickly as his index finger could pull. The bullets landed around the party with general inaccuracy.
“One! Go! Go, goddamnit, go!”
The breaching man discharged his firearm and the doorknob flew off with ease. He kicked the door open with a swift kick from a black-soled boot and entered the unwelcoming darkness of the house.
