Robert Freund

June 5, 2003

Creative Writing

Period 2

A Man Now Broken

Chapter Three

“Hold your fire until you can clearly see your target!” shouted one of the town’s natives. Likely he was simply stating it for our benefit. They’d done it time and time again, no doubt, and each of them knew what they were up against and how to handle it. I squinted slightly, looking off into the distance. The dust was being kicked up by something. A sound drifted to my ears, drawing louder and louder. The roar of engines, pushing the vehicles towards us at full throttle. They melted into view from the horizon, perhaps seven of them rolling in our direction.

“They usually circle before the wall like idiots,” whispered one of the men to my side, another town native. “Aim to disable their cars…that’s the usual routine.” I nodded slightly, glancing down before the wall. Indeed, the earth was littered with burned out and abandoned vehicles. That was when I could identify the smell. It would only be added to. My nose wrinkled as I looked away, not wishing to watch the corpses as they continued to slowly rot.

In that short period, our adversaries had drawn close to the wall. They did just as the man had said, starting to circle about before it, yelling wildly over the motors of their cars. However, they were also firing at us simultaneously. I heard bullets whiz over my head as others ricocheted off the metal walls. I blinked, uncertain of what to make of it. I’d never been shot at before, and I didn’t know how to react. The wall hat opened up, however. Guns on both sides of me blazed, drowning out even the vehicles below us. The machine guns ripped through the afternoon air, assault rifles crackled in short bursts. I didn’t even realize I had taken a shot, my Springfield seeming to thunder above all the rest.

Combat has a strange effect on the human body, though I’d imagine that it is different for each person. That was my first taste of it. I was confused and unsure of everything. I was aware of little that I did, almost as though I watched myself act from outside of my own body. I saw the battle’s progress, however, ever mindful of those vehicles on the ground sending bullets at us. One man to my left dropped back, the same who had told me of the enemy’s patterns, having caught a bullet in the shoulder. He lost his footing with its impact, whipped backwards and sent off the wall. Luckily, the town’s experience in such attacks had given them the foresight of placing old mattresses below the battlements to cushion any falls.

One by one, the cars slowed and grinded to a halt, shaking under the fury of hundreds of rounds being poured into them. Bullet holes filled the sides of the dead vehicles. Their inhabitants were scarce seen. The most I saw through most of the battle was blood; blood seeping through the crack beneath a door, dripping thick and crimson to the dirt below the vehicle. I told myself it was oil or something to that effect and continued shooting.

Finally only one car continued to move, though another had fallen from our defenses. My heart was beating faster than I could count, my blood racing through my veins. I felt as though I could hear and see all, that I was untouchable and untiring. The tires of the thing blew out, flapping around the rims until the whole car finally smashed into the various debris around the wall. One of the doors was flung open, the passenger emerging with a shotgun in hand. He fired a shot, worked the pump, and fired another, and then was taken down in a cacophony of gunfire. I watched, unaware that I was amongst those shooting at him, as bullet after bullet entered his body. They entered on one side and exploded from the other in a spray of blood and chunks of flesh and bone, his tossed-together leather outfit getting torn to shreds. He stayed on his feet for little more than two seconds before he crashed to the ground, arms attached to his body by little more than strings of muscle. I couldn’t even make out his face, there was little more than a gaping hole left in his skull due to the sheer volume of fire that had impacted with it. He only remained up so long because the gunfire had kept him there. That scene has remained with me since then, and I doubt I will ever forget it.

As it turned out, one of the shots he’d managed to get off found its home in the face of one of the town’s citizens, sending him clear off the wall into a bloodied mattress.

Weapons turned without thought back to the car, which had begun to smoke. Within a moment, it had burst into flames, and the driver’s door swung open. Screams burst out into the air as the driver emerged, flailing his limbs as he slowly burned. He spun, ran, struggled, dropped, rolled, and finally his screams died out and his movements halted. It must have taken ten seconds for him to die, though it seemed like his screams had been piercing me for an eternity. The fire that engulfed him slowly died out, his clothing burned off and his skin charred black. The scent of his corpse rose into my nostrils, sickeningly pungent.

None of us had fired a shot at him. We had all watched him suffer slowly. I turned to look at the faces of the town’s defenders, each of them wearing expressions of hatred as they gazed at the still smoldering corpses.

We climbed back down, and we guards returned to the trailer, where we resumed cleaning our weapons and checking ammo. We’d lost a bit during the battle, but it was an acceptable amount. Nothing was said. The silence was disheartening. The noise of combat was intense, and not for a moment was there silence when we were fighting. But now that the deed was done, it was as though all sound in the world had ceased. I thought I heard a rolling wind far off, but it was drowned out by the cocking of a gun.

Reno approached me later that night.

“You did good up there, kid,” he said to me, his voice strangely sympathetic. “You know, I haven’t been doing this forever. I went through my first time once too.” That sounded even more strange. Reno was a legend amongst Jack’s men, I thought then that he must have been born on the battlefield in some forgotten war.

Again I was silent, dazed and confused. What had happened hadn’t set in yet.

“You got your first kill today, at least,” he muttered. I gave him a questioning glance. With all the bullets that were flying, how could he tell if I’d gotten a kill or not?

“Your fire contributed to his death. That is a kill in my book,” he explained. “Don’t let it get to you. You’re going to have to get used to it if you want to make it far where we’re going.” He patted me on the back and was soon gone. I was left with my thoughts. I had killed. My bullet had helped to kill another human being.

For some reason, it didn’t register as something wrong.