Third Person - Complete

Shame

The room door swung open, revealing Newsome, who was standing in the hallway with a six-pack of beer in one hand.

"Aaayyy, Roberts, how's it going," Newsome said. Roberts didn't notice the worry hiding underneath his happy tone.

"Just glad to be back," Roberts said, turning around. He waved at Newsome. "Come on in."

"Want a beer?" Newsome asked, closing the door behind him.

"No," Roberts said, moving into the main room.

The stereo was playing Bon Jovi, the CD Roberts had put in the rotating cradle and let it spin up. Roberts moved into the room and sat down in the chair, picking up his can of Cola and taking a long drink off of it.

Newsome grabbed the other chair, dragging it over by Roberts and sitting down. He popped the top off the beer with a church key, tossing the cap into the garbage can.

"You all right?" Newsome asked after a minute or two.

To Newsome's eyes, Roberts looked like hell. Wearing only his boxers, he looked washed out, pale almost, with dark circles under his eyes. He had scrapes on his forearms, his knuckles were scraped up, and his hand shook as he drank from his can of soda.

"Just," Roberts took a minute. "Two days of moving ammunition as fast as possible into bunkers. I'm exhausted."

Newsome nodded. "You look like hell," he said.

"Stillwater works us like goddamn slaves," Roberts said. "Almost a hundred trailers of missiles, Stillwater had us pack them all into the bunkers working in shifts."

Newsome nodded, taking a pull off his beer.

"We had to pull every pallet apart, inspect everything for any damage, then repallet everything before it cold be loaded," Roberts said. "Almost fourteen hundred pallets, and it barely even dented how much was in the bunker."

"Yeah, those bunkers are pretty big," Newsome said.

"Five high, ten to a side, two sides, fourteen rows. Not even a third of the bunker," Roberts said. "Christ, all day yesterday, all night, half of today, and all we had to show for it was a third of a bunker loaded. Stillwater worked us like goddamn slaves."

Newsome nodded slowly. "Where's he now?"

"The medic, that E-5, the fat girl not the Amazon, she came up and got him. Apparently they're driving to Nuremberg or somewhere," Roberts shrugged. He looked at Newsome. "Why?"

"My squad leader told me to check on you. Heard you guys had a casualty, he was worried," Newsome answered.

"Yeah. A trailer blew up. Lewis, that big Amazon, and some other chick were too close to it, same with a couple of other guys and some civilians. They evac'd the six of them on a chopper. The civvies went on an ambulance," Roberts said.

"She alive?" Newsome asked. He hoped so, he liked Lewis.

"The fat girl went with her on the medivac, Stillwater said something about them being alive and out of surgery at dinner yesterday," Roberts said.

Newsome noticed Roberts looked seriously off. More than just tired, like something was missing.

"Dude, what's wrong?" Newsome asked.

Roberts shook his head. "Nothing, man. I'm just tired."

"Bullshit, man. Don't give me that. What's eating you?" Newsome asked.

Roberts closed his eyes. "I'm just feeling a little sick from the meds and I fucking hate it here."

Newsome shrugged. "Alcohol makes it ease up a bit," He said, lifting up one of the beer bottles.