The Soldier

High in the Afghanistan Mountains a Soldier fights for his life and for those around him. What he unleashes changes earth forever and set's off a race unlike any other.

Chapter 1

The Soldier

The soldier stumbled backwards covering his face with the torn remnants of what was left of his arm.  Rock and metal fragments pelted him from both the air and the ground, digging into his body, tearing off pieces of clothing, and peeling back skin.  The shock wave threatened to cast him off his feet but he held firm.  The mix of sweat, blood, and dirt had combined to create a thick paste that at times blinded him.  His ears had long given up the art of hearing and replaced the complicated world of sounds with a single high pitched ring.  His weapon, a modified M-16 called a Masada, was being held up by a half cracked sun baked boulder and his right hand. 

                Every once in a while the enemy would charge.  They would come pouring down the hill in small groups of eight or nine and then when they hit a certain point the soldier would make them stop.  The soldier always identified a certain rock that he liked best.  This rock was something he could identify with.  It was always special, always stood out from the background, and always gave him a line that allowed him to work his gift in that “Oh so special way!”.  In this case it was a shiny black frying pan looking rock of moderate size and circular shape.  Its round, flat convection like surface stood out amongst its tan craggy peers in a way that seemed telling of the current dire situation.  They were alone and the only way they were coming down off this mountain was if they worked together.  The soldier really hoped he would get to put this rock with the others back home.

                The leader of this current charge hit the magic imaginary line with his hand half raised to signal the others on.  Behind the leader were seven others, all of them wide eyed, none of them seeming to be in that great of a hurry, and each of them  knowing that a comrade had gone and died before this current run.  The soldier pulled the trigger.  The enemy leader spun around to continue the charge.  He had just taken a step when his head bent back in a weird angle.  The forward momentum of the body’s motion carried the leader a few feet where he landed right side up on his knees.  Out of the back of his head sprayed a gush of red and grey - white warning the troops behind him what lay in store if they continued on.  The seven men came to a jolting halt.  They seemed confused about which direction they should be going.  To help them out, the soldier locked onto the head of a second enemy soldier, and pulled the trigger.   The head exploded into a rainy mist of blood, flesh, and ivory skull fragments.  One of the remaining six threw his weapon aside and ran sideways, the other five scurried back the way they came. 

                Though he was in a great deal of pain the soldier smiled.  They always dropped when he pulled the trigger. He was naturally gifted with being able to gauge wind direction, distance or range of how far something was away from him, elevation, and even direction.  He never questioned how he was able to do something or why he was able to.  He could hit what he aimed for as long as the weapon and ammunition were sound.  The problem was when the enemy stopped rushing down the hill.  When that happened the mortars and RPG’s would rain down from the sky and with little support all they could do is sit it out and wait till a new group would rush down the hill to see if the Devil was dead yet.

                The Captain looked about as scared as the soldier felt.  He could feel the fear gnawing his insides, threatening to overtake him, and should that happen he would freeze up.  He had seen it many times and you could never tell who was going to fold under the fear.  Everybody on his Platoon had faced fear and had found a way overcome it.  It was what had given them all the privilege to rescue the rescuers.

He smiled at the Captain.  Many thought the man was beyond human.  He knew different.  The Captain was a man with two young kids that looked just like him.  He had a wife who always showed up at the barracks with fresh baked goods.  The men loved the Captain and there was no doubt that the Captain loved them.

“We’ll be OK, sir.” The soldier said.

The Captain nodded.  They both knew the situation.  The chances of them coming home were grave.  The Captain had left two bullets in his pistol just for this moment.  Should the time come the Captain would see to it that they both didn’t suffer at the hands of the enemy.

 Half of the Captains face was burnt charcoal.  Pieces of skin were flaking to the side while deep red cracks seeped red through the cheek and chin.  One of the Captains eyes was gone, in its place oozed clear liquid and blood.  Yet, the Captain kept talking, at times yelling into a transmitter.  He was trying to bring down a world of hurt on the enemy but there were no takers.  The rescuers needed rescuing and they were deep in the enemies hunting grounds.  Something caught the soldier’s eye, he spun the gun around, and took the couple of seconds to identify that it was what he thought it was.  One of the enemy soldiers had circled around and was coming in on the backend.   Holding the weapon with one hand, he held the rifle over the Captains head and fired.  The guy dropped his gun to his side and grabbed his stomach.  The soldier could see the red coming through the fingers and for a second they locked eyes.   He lifted his weapon a bit higher and this time he opened a wound that started at the nose and worked its way down to the lungs.

                He heard shouts from behind him.  Turning he could see the enemy was charging again.  This time they had formed a line and were moving as one.  They must have gotten the notice that the Platoon was down to just him and the Captain.  He growled, madness threatened to overtake him.  Most of the soldiers in the platoon had kids some even still had their wives… 

                He dropped the Masada to the ground and grabbed a grenade.  The Captain reached up and pulled the pin without even thinking about it.

                “Recon First!”  The Soldier yelled underhand throwing the grenade.

                It tip toed across the gravel spent mountain towards the advancing line of troops.  The explosion scattered four of the enemy in a semi wide circle, two of them twisted midair, their legs disappearing in a wave of red.  An arm flew skyward the fingers twitching as if the arm was attached.  A fifth enemy combatant fell to the ground tossing his weapon aside like it had bit him.  He then screamed, tore at his clothing, and pitched forward where he curled into a fetal position that shuddered.

                The soldier pulled his 9mm and took out two more of the enemy that had advanced close enough to see the black in his eyes.  The closer of the two enemy troops fell backwards dropping both his weapon and a grenade.  The soldier barely had time to drop before the explosion.  He covered the Captain with his body as a wave of pebbles, dirt, and flesh cascaded down around them.   Pulling himself back up, he aimed his Glock at the last remaining enemy force that were making their way down to his position.  They were close; to close, so close that he could see the sweat on their scalp.  They had been told that resistance would be light at the start but now they were the last of a hundred man army that had begun this assault.  Now, they were reconsidering the cost of this adventure just as they were about to cross over the finish line.

                The soldier had seen hesitation like this.  One bullet would be all he needed.  One more brain exploding burst and they would run for their life.  He pulled back on the trigger but it stopped halfway.  There was a definable click that ran up his palm telling him that the weapon had jammed.  He tossed the useless piece of metal aside and grabbed the entrenching tool that he carried at his side.  He leaped over the boulder that he had been hiding behind.  Fear was now replaced with the cold pure energy of hate and anger.  He hadn’t expected to die in this harsh wilderness at the tip of the world’s toilet bowl.  After all this fighting he would die because of a simple mechanical error was beyond his understanding.  The simple rescue mission had resulted in a number of his best friends being killed and wounded.  To come this far and to die was beyond his comprehension.  All he had left was his spirit and a military issued shovel.  He would make damn sure that at least one of the b******s had met the sharp end of both before the fight was through.

The enemy hadn’t expected the flying banshee that exploded from behind the boulder.  By the time they were able to raise their rifles the soldier was upon them.  The edge of the entrenching tool had been honed and sharpened over the last couple of months during the many periods of boredom that came with being in this hell of a wasteland.  It had been more of a project to see how sharp he could get it than a real process of making a weapon.  He had been teased, laughed at, and mocked till the day he shaved with it.  It was an American Samurai Sword honed with the blood and love of a warrior.  Before he died it would taste blood.

                The shovel slipped through the top portion of the first enemies head like a knife going through butter.  There was a sharp look of disbelief in the eyes of the enemy before dropping to the floor.  The second enemy was to the side of him and using the momentum he swung the shovel up and back over his head allowing gravity to help with the flow.  The shovel spit through the second soldiers arm with a clear crack near the elbow.  Both arm and weapon fell to the floor in a spur of bright red spray of pumping blood.  The third enemy was frozen, petrified, his body trembled.  He had joined the Jihad to kill soldiers.  This was no soldier.  It was a whirling demon that flayed its enemies to the bones.  His weapon was useless.  He let the weapon slip from his fingers. 

In the reflection of his enemy’s eye he could see why this man had given up hope.  He was no longer a man or anything that looked like a man.  He been sculpted and reshaped by the battle into a one handed devil, made up of burnt hair, torn flesh, blood, and fury.  Around him were the bodies of his enemies some of them stacked one on top of the other.  The Jihadist’s weapon hit the ground with an ear splitting clack that echoed throughout the canyons.  With that the Soldier swung the shovel up over his head and brought it down like Thor bringing down Lightning.  It caught the frozen jihadist directly in the middle of his head.  Slicing downward it tore through scalp, skull, and brains till it rested on the roof of his enemy’s mouth.  The Jihadist crumpled.  From the top of the Jihadist head a fountain of flesh, grey matter, and blood had detonated across The Soldiers face disguising the cold hearted smile that lay beneath.  Bringing up his foot he placed it on the dying Jihadists chest.  With an enormous push he kicked the man backward while at the same time wrenched backwards on the handle.  There was an audible sucking sound that ricocheted throughout the mountain and with that his baptized tool pulled free.

                Bullets rained down all around him.  His ears rang with the sounds of whistling bullets as they passed by his head.  One last enemy jihadist was at the height of the ridge with a machine gun.  The soldier chuckled.  He couldn’t imagine what the man was thinking.  He began the slow stroll upwards, the shovel resting on his shoulder.  He didn’t care about the rock that had buried itself deep inside his shoulder or the numerous puncture wounds that had ripped his armored vest apart like so much Swiss cheese.  Somewhere behind him the Captain was yelling for him to get behind the boulder but he had gone beyond the limits of a sane man.  There was just him, his entrenching tool, and the b*****d that was shooting at him.  By the time he had made it up the hill the soldier had thrown his weapon aside and was on his hands and knees begging for forgiveness.  There was no room in his heart for forgiveness.  The cold spirit of righteous anger had taken up all that space.

                “When you get to hell you tell them whose coming.”  He growled.  The Jihadist raised his hands as if that would make a difference.  He held the shovel there for a second letting the dimming light of the sun sparkle on the blade and then he brought it down as hard as his muscles would allow him.  The enemy soldier quivered for a second and fell over.  He gasped, gurgled, and with a few guppy breaths grew silent.  Out of his hand rolled a simple small grenade, the soldier swatted it away as if it was a golf ball, it skipped on the ground twenty feet away before falling into one of the mortar pits.

The soldier turned around and could see the Captain trying to stand.  Around them the bodies of his friends and his enemies had turned the mountain side red.  On the outline of the carnage lay the wrecked and burnt skeleton of a Helicopter that had brought him into this circus.  It was madness.   All of it was madness.

                “All Clear?”  A soldier yelled out more as a question then a statement.  His hands wouldn’t let go of the shovel.  Then the hole blew out in front of him.  A chunk of it slammed into his thigh with enough force to twirl him through the air.  Still, his hand wouldn’t let go of the shovel.  Time crawled and slowed to the point that he could see a fly’s wings beating in the air.  He had enough time to count the rocks flying around his head.  The sun flickered in and out and then the blackness came in from all sides.  For a brief second the Soldier felt peace and then was hit with the dull realization that something much worse was coming behind the darkness.

                For the first time the Soldier felt utter and pure terror of the kind that loosens bladders and bowels.  He screamed in this nightmare darkness and groped for any weapon that he may find.  Finding none the soldier screamed and screamed until he could scream no more.