Chapter One
The Voice
Shelby belly crawled up the hill, choking in the thick, grimy smoke. The ground pounded against his bloody chest in time with the impacts of the incoming rounds. Smoke and fire erupted all around him. Explosions filled his world almost drowning out the agonized screams of the wounded and dying, as well as his own hoarse screams of pain and terror.
Shrapnel whined through the air, thick as a swarm of incredibly vicious killer bees, stinging and killing, killing and stinging.
Shelby knew, amidst all the chaos and pain, it was crawl or die. Most likely it was crawl and die anyway.
Bodies were everywhere. A jagged piece of Taylor lay on the right, that stupid peace tattoo on his wrist the only identifiable part. The top half of Smith was on the left. Soft, squishy, drippy parts of other soldiers decorated the landscape. Jackson stood up to get a shot with his flamethrower. Shelby screamed at him to get down but to no avail. The flamethrower’s pressure tank was pierced by a semi molten chunk of shrapnel and exploded. Covered in the burning gel, Jackson screamed as he danced in the flames. Writhing in the fire, sloughs of melting skin were flung off while he danced. Jackson turned his flaming head toward Shelby, reached out a burning arm, and then collapsed onto the ground, his melted eyes searching for Shelby.
Shelby covered his eyes and ears, desperately trying to hide from the screaming, from the chaos, from Jackson.. So much noise, so much chaos, so much pain, so much death.
The smell.
The unforgettable smell of burning human, distinct from all other smells. The crackling sounds of burning meat.
Jackson KEPT SCREAMING he wouldn't stop! Oh my God, oh my God...
A whistling, ringing incoming 105 round …..
BrrrrrrIiiiNnnnnnGggggg.
The Alarm clock went off. Shelby woke up screaming. He rolled over and slapped the damn thing. It was Monday morning… right on schedule. Time to get up. Time to go to work. He mustn't be late. He had to stick to his schedule.
Shelby got up...’took care of business”...dressed, and snagged his lunchbox on the way out the door. He walked down the steps and mounted his bicycle.
Minutes later he was placing an order at a nearby junk food joint right on schedule.
Fifteen minutes later he was riding down the street. He alternated between drinking from a foam cup of coffee in one hand, and eating the donuts from the other. He had no hands left for the handlebars. He didn’t need them. He rode the bicycle effortless using no hands. Pretty good for an old codger.
Just as he had done for the last fifteen years. Right on Schedule.
About an hour later Shelby rode his bike through the gate of the factory where he worked. It was a little bit before daylight. He was about fifteen minutes early.
Just as he had been doing for the last fifteen years.
Shelby parked his bike in the bike rack, chained it and went inside. He put his backpack in his locker, locked it, and went to stand inline at the time clock. His coworkers were talking visiting and carrying on like young people will. Shelby didn’t say much. He didn’t join in. Shelby didn’t talk much. An old war injury to his throat made his speech difficult for some people to understand. He couldn’t hear all that well either. His hearing loss was due to being exposed to too many explosions, weapons fire and loud engines. He didn’t even understand their language, mostly. A lot of his co-workers had no English. Shelby didn’t have a lot in common with them other than the job.
At the top of the hour they all began to clock in. Five minutes later Shelby was at his workstation. He operated the glass bead machine. It was a type of sandblaster. Shelby cleaned parts.
He had a fifteen minute coffee break midway through the morning. Shelby went to his locker, removed his lunchbox and went to the break room. He found a seat away from everyone. He sat in the corner, poured himself a cup of coffee from his thermos and read a few pages from an e-book on his smartphone.
Shelby loved his smartphone. He had always been a reader. He’d always had a paperback book in his pocket. The smartphone changed that. He didn’t just have a book...he had a library. Anything at all that he wanted to read he could download from the internet onto his smartphone in seconds. Shelby had literally thousands of books, manuals and other publications stored in his smartphone and backed up on the cloud.
Shelby read books to escape. He could dive into a book and block out the world. He could block out his life. He could forget the pain for a little bit. He’d read almost every Science Fiction book and action adventure book that had been published. That was a LOT of books. He was having to branch out into fantasy, myths and legends for new material.
Break over...Shelby locked up his stuff and went back to work.
Lunch Break...repeat the procedure. Eat a sandwich.
Mid Afternoon Coffee Break...the same. He drank the last of his coffee.
When quitting time rolled around. Shelby cleaned up his workstation, went to the time clock and punched out. Then he removed his stuff from his locker, walked outside to his bicycle. ….and rode home.
Just as he had been doing for the last fifteen years.
When he got home he cleaned up, took the last of the food from his lunch book,his smartphone and a bottle of vodka outside to sit the table on his small balcony. He’d drink vodka, surf the net, and read until he was sufficiently drunk to go to sleep. Then he’d go inside, lay down, and pass out.
(and he dreamed)
He was Walking down a jungle trail. Jerry was point and was walking just in front of him. Jerry stepped on land mine. The explosion blew Jerry’s leg completely off and knocked Shelby down. Shelby was deafened by the explosion. He couldn’t hear Jerry screaming. Shelby belly crawled to Jerry as fast as he could evading small arms fire as he went. The explosion had triggered an ambush. Hidden VC opened up.
Shelby slithered thru puddles of Jerry’s blood. Blood had spurted from the severed leg like a water hose. Jerry had stopped screaming and passed out. Shelby applied a tourniquet to the stump. It didn’t help. Jerry was dead.
The patrol was pinned down by gunfire.
The Lt. Called in air support.
The patrol held steady. Attempting to disengage and run from the enemy in these conditions would be fatal.
PUFF was due to arrive in seconds. At the Lt.’s orders smoke was deployed to tell PUFF where they were.
PUFF the magic dragon, arrived and did his thing…
Where PUFF goes...nothing grows….or lives.
BrrrrrrIiiiNnnnnnGggggg.
The Alarm clock went off. Shelby woke up screaming, as usual, it was his morning routine. He rolled over and slapped the damn thing. Tuesday morning. Time to get up. Time to go to work.
So it went. So it had gone. Every day was like the day before it.
Just as it had been for the last fifteen years.
Every morning he woke up screaming. It seemed as if he had a different dream for each morning.
Except for weekends.
Weekends were different. On Friday night when Shelby got home from work, his schedule varied. He cleaned up as usual but then his routine changed. He’d hurriedly eat his last sandwich, then gather his dirty clothes together. He’d get on his bicycle and drop them off at the Chinese Laundry. In the early years Shelby had done his laundry himself at the Laundromat. He’d discovered the Chinese laundry quite by accident. It was actually cheaper for him to have the Chinese do it for him than to do it himself.
That chore taken care of, Shelby would ride his bicycle to the bus stop. From there he’d catch a bus ride to the lake. The bus had a bicycle rack. It could carry several bicycles. Shelby would ride the bus as far as he could then ride his bicycle the rest of the way.
There was a U-Store-it on the shore. Shelby had a unit rented. He’d open the door...roll his bicycle inside, lean it against the wall..and haul out his boat. The boat was pre-packed from the last time he’d used it with a supply of pure grain alcohol and fishing gear.
Shelby would spend the weekend boating…alone. Mostly he just paddled around the lake and into the swamp. When hungry he’d find something to eat. He’d learned to live off the land while in the military, lakes and swamps were easy.
He wanted to be alone.
He took his boat to places that other, larger, boats couldn’t go. He’d paddle about, fish and hunt or just read books on his smartphone. He had a solar powered battery charger for his phone. He slept in his boat among the reeds, the marshes and the mudflats. He drank alcohol constantly. He didn’t have an alarm clock and didn’t need one. He didn’t miss it waking him up from his sleep. He didn’t miss thinking the ring was an incoming 105 round, a stream of fire from a mini-gun, or some other type of ordinance. He didn’t miss waking up screaming.
It was pleasant one the lake, except for the mosquitoes..
Sunday evening wasn’t so pleasant. He’d return to the storage unit, store his boat, then ride his bicycle to the bus stop. From there it took him to his stop in town near the Chinese laundry. He’d pick up his clean clothes and go back to his apartment.
Just as he had been doing for the last fifteen years.
(dream)
Shelby hid behind the idol. He and his unit had flushed a large contingent of the Viet Cong. The VC had run, Shelby’s unit had pursued. The enemy had fled to and holed up in an old, old temple. The temple had been completely overgrown by the jungle.
It was a trap.
The VC had ratholes,
tunnels and bobby traps set everywhere.
Didn’t matter.
Orders were order. Their orders was to secure the area.
Their orders were to “take em out.”
So they did.
His unit advanced on the temple.
At great loss.
Shelby was crouched behind an idol when it took a cannon round.
They had to destroy the temple in order to save it.
Shelby’s war-fighting career ended that day.
The cannon round that destroyed the idol almost killed Shelby.
Rock fragments hit him in the head.
Fragments from the stone statue
...smashed his skull and penetrated his brain.
BrrrrrrIiiiNnnnnnGggggg.
The Alarm clock went off. Shelby woke up screaming as usual. Of all the dreams that he dreamed he hated this one the most. Rock fragments had lodged in his brain. He’d almost died. The doctors told him that some were still in his head.
Inoperable they said.
Shelby rolled over and slapped the damn clock. Tuesday morning. Time to get up. Time to go to work. It had been a long weekend. He’d had three wonderful days on the lake.
Shelby got up...’took care of business”..dressed, and snagged his lunchbox on the way out the door. He walked down the steps and mounted his bicycle.
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…back on schedule.
This morning, for some reason, he arrived a little bit early. There was a chain on the gate. There was a lock on the chain. There was a sign on the gate too.
Closed
Put out of business by
ObamaCare and the EPA.
Your checks will be mailed to you
Management.
Shelby was stunned.
Fifteen years ago, after he had been released from the hospital, the nice lady at the VA had set him up with this job. She had enrolled him in therapy, and found him a place to stay. Shelby’s routine hadn’t varied from that day. On the weekend he fished on the lake. Weeknights he slept at his apartment. Weekdays he worked as a sandblaster at the factory.
The factory was CLOSed! That wasn’t according to his schedule. He didn’t know what to do.
“Damn Cowards” Shelby heard a voice. He turned to see Sam sitting in his old beater nearby. “They didn’t have the balls to tell us themselves. They took the chickenshit way out. They chained the gate, and posted a sign.”
Sam spat a wad of chaw onto the pavement. Sam was the foreman and always had a chaw in his mouth. Nasty habit.
“You better get your ass out of here boy” Sam told Shelby.
Odd that...Shelby was maybe twenty years older than Sam. Sam was black as night. Shelby was white. For some reason Sam got a kick out of calling Shelby “boy”. Shelby didn’t care.
Sam got out of his beater and stood next to Shelby. Sam was HUGE...even if he did have a wooden leg.
“When the rest of the crew shows up they ain’t gonna be happy” Sam said.
“You’re the only white boy here” Sam continued. “No telling what might go thru their empty little heads. They’ll likely as not find a way to blame you. You best leave.”
“What about you?” Shelby asked.
“After all these years and you haven’t noticed that I’m not white? They won’t mess with me boy. They better not” Sam ‘accidentally’ swung his shirt back so that Shelby could see his pistol. On him it looked small. It wasn’t. “Go on. Get outa here. Hurry now.”
Shelby remounted his bike.
“One thing Boy” Sam said
“Yeah?” Shelby looked back toward Sam.
“You're a good man” Sam said. “even if you are white. Take care of yourself.”
Shelby just nodded. Something was in his throat. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
Shelby rode away.
Shelby just rode. He rode his bicycle around town. His schedule was shot. For the last fifteen years he’d ridden to the factory in the morning. Worked all day, then gone home at night.
It wasn’t night...so he didn’t ride home. That wouldn’t be according to his schedule. That wouldn’t be right.
Shelby just rode…
Shelby rode until the time was right, according to his schedule.
The sun was going down. Time to go home. Shelby rode his bicycle to his street and attempted to turn into his driveway. He stopped. There was construction tape strung on stakes all around the lot.
The house, and the garage apartment behind it, where he lived, was being torn down.
“Can I help you?” a rather plump lady wearing a safety vest and a hard hat approached.
“Uh...this is my home.” Shelby was in shock. What the hell had happened? “I live here.”
“I’m sorry?” She said. “This house was condemned by the city. It and several of the old houses around it are being torn down to make room for a new shopping plaza.”
“But it’s my home.” Shelby repeated. “I live here.”
“This one was first” the lady said, ignoring Shelby’s lament.. “The owner had been dead for some time. When she died her kin sold it to the developer. Since it was empty the developer demolished it first. No one lived in the apartment in the rear.”
“But it wasn’t empty.” Shelby repeated “I live there.”
The lady stood and stared at Shelby without speaking.
Shelby just sat there..there was no need to say anything more to her. She didn’t want to hear it. Nothing could be done anyway. It was over. This had been a really bad day.
“I’m sorry.” the lady repeated. “you’ll have to move along.”
Shelby nodded. He rode away
He rode, and he rode and he rode.
All night.
The sun rose and he continued to ride. Shelby had no idea where he was. He wasn’t familiar with this part of town. It was the bad part of town near the river. He wandered around all that day too. He had been awake for the biggest part of two days. He was exhausted. Worse than that he didn’t have any alcohol.
Shelby feared dreaming while sober. That was the worst. He dreaded going to sleep.
Finally, when the sun was going down, he could keep his eyes open no longer. Shelby parked his bike and crawled under a bridge. He fought valiantly against Morpheus. Morpheus always won. Every time. He had no alcohol. He would dream. He feared his dreams. He went to sleep. He dreamed. For the first night in over fifteen years Shelby was sober when he went to sleep.
The dreams weren’t pretty.
Combat ...,
Hand to hand
He was fighting….everyone was fighting...
he was kung fu fighting...he was good at what he did.
He was a professional. They were not. They were pathetic.
They were pretty much stumbling around in the dark...
they were slow and pitiful..he were fast and lethal.
...their bodies littered the landscape.
It wasn’t a dream..
“FREEZE” the cop said. From the sound of his voice the cop was NOT amused. Actually he sounded a little bit afraid.
Shelby gradually emerged from his dream. He shook his head like a horse dislodging a fly.
“I said Freeze. Do NOT move. Put your hands behind your head, cross your legs…. kneel.” The cop screamed.
Shelby had orders…that was good. He liked orders. Deciding what to do himself was hard. He could do this. He did it. It took him a little bit of time but he did. Shelby wasn’t young and he was in constant, low level pain, but he tried. He slowly sank to the ground. He didn’t fall over. He was a little bit proud of himself for not falling. He slowly became aware of his surroundings.
Bodies were everywhere. No it was not a dream.
Shelby whimpered.
The cop held his handgun trained on Shelby. The sound Shelby had made spooked him. The cop was in fear of his life. “Don’t move”.
The cop continued to hold his gun steady, very steady, ROCK steady, on Shelby. The cop’s partner put cuffs on Shelby’s wrists…… oddly gently.
“Send the meat wagon” The first cop, the one with the gun, spoke into his handheld, after Shelby was handcuffed. “A street gang attacked a homeless guy. It didn’t turn out the way they had expected.”
Shelby was helped to stand by the cop behind him. The cop was again, unexpectedly gentle, almost kind. She spoke to Shelby in a whisper that her partner could not overhear. “Dammitboy...you really kicked some ass!!”
“What? Huh?” Shelby was still in a daze. He was slowly trying to make sense of what happened.
(days later, in a courtroom)
“Mr. Winslow” the Judge said. “Considering the circumstances and your history, the court has decided not to press charges. You are free to go.”
“Thank you your honor.” Shelby knew how to talk to judges. He had watched Perry Mason when he was younger. MUCH younger. It seemed like fifty years ago. Come to think it, it had been fifty years ago, perhaps longer.
He was escorted from the courtroom to the front door of the Courthouse by the court bailiff. As they walked thru the hallway the bailiff chatted with him.
“That was really something that you did to those gang-bangers.” He said. “I saw the pictures. You messed them up good.”
Shelby had no idea what the bailiff was talking about. All he could remember was going to sleep under the bridge then waking up with the cop screaming at him.
“What do you intend to do?” The bailiff asked him. “ You can’t stay around here. The judge won’t be so lenient next time. You KNOW there will be a next time. The street gangs will be out to get you. Lucky for you none of the gang-bangers died. They might even walk again..maybe. They certainly won’t rob anyone. Ever. Bubba, your cell mate, is not going to hurt anyone again either. The Judge was tickled about that too.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Shelby said. “I have no where to go.”
“Do you have any money?” The bailiff asked him “When’s the last time you had a meal?”
“Uh...I don’t know.” Shelby replied. “I don’t remember. I don’t know what happened to my lunchbox, or my bicycle for that matter.”
“We won’t talk about the bicycle. I did manage to save this for you” They had stepped through the door. The bailiff knew where the cameras were. There were in an unobserved spot.
“Here..take this.” it was Shelby’s smart phone.
“This is Friday” the bailiff looked at him in pity. Shelby was pathetically grateful to get his phone back. “You don’t recall when you’ve last eaten?”
“I can’t remember” Shelby was embarrassed “I think they fed me while I was locked up. I can’t remember.”