Blood In The Water: A Tenten Fan Fiction (#3 In Shifting Series)

Blood and Glory

"We'll never get free, Lamb to the slaughter. What you gon' do When there's blood in the water. The price of your greed Is your son and your daughter What you gon' do When there's blood in the water. Look me in my eyes. Tell me everything's not fine. Oh the people ain't happy. And the river has run dry. You thought you could go free. But the system is done for. If you listen real closely. There's a knock at your front door." - Blood//Water Grandson

"FUCK!!!" Reno Klein yelled angrily as bullets shredded the ground around his position.  Everyone was dead and he was the last man standing.  The smell of blood was so strong from the slaughter as was the stench of death and decay.  "MOTHERFUCKERS!"

He fired back at the advancing units, his mind quickly going to how he was going to get out of this.  He was sheltered for the moment but he could not keep eyes on where they were.  Every time he briefly would check his location he was hammered down with rapid gunfire.  He was also exhausted having been awake now for thirty-six hours.  He checked the ammunition he still had and cursed.  It was getting low.  Even after he had scavenged the remains of his fallen comrades for bullets he was going to run out.  He had taken the dog tags of his friends and comrades, a slim hope that if he did survive he would have that to give to his superiors.

Another spray of bullets pierced the wall across from him and behind him.  He looked down at his own tag that had partially come out from his uniform.  He cursed inwardly as he looked at it.  Who was he kidding, he was going to die soon.  He was trying to hold out for darkness once more as he pondered whether or not he could successfully slip away under the cover.  Not likely.  He had enemy combatants to the left, the right, and directly behind him.  They were getting closer to his location.  He pulled out his headphones and shoved them in his ears.  If he was going to die, he was going to die listening to some kick ass music.

Reno carefully checked the enemies position once more as Grandson blasted his ears.  Another spray of bullets.  He fired back halting their attempt to move closer.  He sunk back down and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.  He didn't smoke very often, was actually a habit that he had picked up with the others.  The pack in his hand had been Rabbit's pack.  The last to have fallen, leaving him alone on the desert floor.  His uniform was covered in his comrades blood and brain matter when a lucky shot had caught him in the temple and had blown his brains all into Reno's face and body.

He lit the cigarette and took a deep drag on it.  He was not going to make it to night fall.  Even if he did, there was no getting out of his position.  He was a strategist, an expert... one of the elite in the Marine Corps.  It was for that reason he had been hand picked for this particular mission.  He almost laughed at how his government would not acknowledge their sacrifice publicly.  They weren't supposed to be there - on paper.  It was so secret of a mission that only those in the need to know even knew they were there.

His uncle had died the same way in Vietnam.  The irony hit him as he reloaded his weapons with the last of the ammunition.  It was not like anyone was waiting for him back home.  They were all gone now.  His sister, who had been more like a mother as she was more than twenty years his senior, had died trying to save a kid in the San Marcos River.  His mother had disappeared shortly after.  They believed she had committed suicide from the loss of her daughter.  They just hadn't found her body yet.  Bullshit.  His mother would never have killed herself.  She was as conservative as they came and her faith as a Christian was unrivaled.  She would never have killed herself.  He should be there, looking for her but instead he was pinned down in this cesspool of death and blood.

"Now I am the violence. I am the sickness. Won't accept your silence. Beg me for forgiveness." 

The music sang in his ear and he felt it.  He felt the song as he never had before.  He dragged in on the cigarette deeply and then flicked it away as he blew out.  He adjusted the heavy weapon in his arms, checked the multiple handguns he had stashed on his person.  He then palmed a jagged combat blade as he watched a shadow move from the left corner of his eye.

"Let's do this mother fucker," he whispered as he got into a better position.

The combatant moved at the same time he moved.  Yet Reno had the upper hand.  He was a master at hand to hand combat.  It was for that reason he was the last man in his group.  Bullets sprayed around him as he moved, twisting in mid-air as he got behind the man that had dared to get too close.  He grabbed him by the head and sliced his throat open, using the corpse as a shield against the bullets that immediately started raining.

He fell behind another short barrier and crouched, looking for any further signs of movement.  The enemy had stopped moving at the death of the other man.  They had not anticipated they were dealing with someone like him.  More shots fired into the walls behind and across from him.  They were wasting bullets at this point.  They might have him pinned down like a caged tiger but unless he did something stupid firing rounds at him was pointless.

Reno wiped the blade off on his pants leg then shoved it back into the leg holster.  He had bought himself a few more minutes.  When the random shots stopped, he took a mirror and angled it around the corner of the low wall he was hiding behind.  His eyes widened as he saw one of the men lifting up a rocket launcher.

He was fucked.  He gave a soft curse before lowering his head and laughing.  So this was it.  No more fighting, no more blood.  His mind went back to when he was a kid and running through the woods with his friends, jumping over creeks, doing death defying challenges. Hours spent hunting and fishing.  Mudding in his old Chevy that he had put bigger tires on and jacked up. The various women he had banged the hell out of when the need for physical contact became overwhelming.  It was all over and his life was played out.

Only a few seconds had passed as he remembered but it felt like an eternity.  The air seemed to crackle around him and a feeling he had not had in many years washed over him.  He watched as the air itself seemed to split apart and shimmered in a faint portal.  He did not know what it was but he was willing to chance what might be on the other side.  He did not even hesitate before lunging forward and diving through the opening.