Dog Days

Chapter 49

The days pass in a numb void. I've reduced my pain meds to half a pill every eight hours, and my regular dose of diazepam. The nightmares have returned, but I just wake up and take the time to realize where I am.

The night stand lamps are always on, so I don't wander off into the woods in a state.

The diazepam has helped with my anxiety, but I still relive the moment that bomb took me out, every night.

I see the horror of disembowelment. I see the kids and women I killed. I see my own people mutilated and dead in front of me. Hell, I've even put my own people out of their misery.

And I pay the price every single time I close my eyes.

This night, like most nights, I dream of the destruction.

I dream of the day we found our guys mutilated and strung up, like some sick game.

We were on recon. They were on an average sweep, just keeping an eye on the militia across the border in Syria.

We got word that the militia was moving back, but it was an ambush. We heard them take fire over the radio, so we went in after them.

It was a windy day, not even 80 degrees, and Fandral, Hogan, Drax, and Sif were on ride along.

We had parked a kilometer away from the last known transmission. As we started across the barren desert, near the rubble of what used to be a civilian town.

I lead the team, with Volstagg and Fandral over my left shoulder and Sif and Drax over my right.

The silence is deafening as we move through the debris. At some point, I call over my shoulder "The last transmission came from right ahead. Keep your eyes peeled."

As we continue on, I unholster my pocket knife and station it above my rifle. I order "Militia was here yesterday. Shoot first, ask questions later."

As we near the perimeter of the fallen town, I look around the corner to find a kid in the road. He stands in front of these metal posts. When I look through my scope, I see marine gear and movement.

I look back at my crew and declare "We got a kid in the road, fifty meters ahead. I think I see Smith, Foster, and Avery."

They look at me in concern and I sigh "I'm going to cross the road. I gotta see what we have."

I run across the street and whistle to give up my location. The only reaction is from the kid.

I swing my rifle around the corner, just in time to identify that the kid is running this way, with an explosive device in his hands. I call out in a dooming voice "Put it down, now!"

As he runs at us, I see no other option but to take the shot. And the moment I pull the trigger, I yell at my people "Get down!"

I see them hit the deck as I take cover behind the crumbling wall. As the kid hits the ground with a bullet in his skull, I hear the metal hitting stone, and then- BOOM!

It's so loud that I'm almost deafened. Through the smoke, I force myself to stand and push on.

We scan every building on the way to our men, finding no living soul in the process. I start to realize the kid was bait.

When we get to them, the horror in front of me is sickening to look at. Their hands and feet lay tossed off to the side, and their blood stumps have been cauterized to prevent them from bleeding out. Their tongues are nailed to a plank above their heads, and their eyes lay in the pulled blood below them. Their intestines lay over the ground, to the point where I can't even tell who's below to who.