Deliverance - Hooch and Matt's Story

Hooch and Matt
’s Story

Marquesate &
TA Brown

Copyright © 2011 by Marquesate & TA Brown

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

This 1
st
Edition of Deliverance first published in print in the United Kingdom in 2012 by Camouflage Press

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the copyright holders. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Camouflage Press

Cover art by Marquesate

Photograph by Les Byerley

This
e
book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this book can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the authors and the publisher.

To all our wonderful friends on the forum.
Thank you for everything, and most of all
for
your friendship.

Particular thanks
go
to Sequelguerrier, The Reader and best friend, and BAM,
our
consultant on the South.

Deliverance
is a spin-off from the epic Special Forces, which is available for free
at
www.mar
quesate.org/special-forces.html
.

Deliverance is the story of Hooch and Matt, secondary characters in Special Forces, who first appear in 1991 and several times after that.

It is not necessary to have read the epic, but there are certain chapters in Special Forces which are pivotal to Hooch and Matt’s lives before the events of Deliverance.

The following
chapters
contain
crucial moments for Hooch and Matt.

Matt’s first appearance

1991 Chapter XXII
-
War Junkie: January 1991, Saudi Arabia

Hooch’s first appearance

1991 Chapter XXVII
-
Deliverance: August 1991, the Persian Gulf

Important
revelation
s
about Hooch

1992
Chapter XLI
-
Blank Slate: May 1992, Berlin, Germany

1992
Chapter XLII
-
Wind of Change: May 1992, Berlin, Germany

1992
Chapter XLIII
-
Fadenkreuz: May 1992, Berlin, Germany

May 1993, United States of America

“I know you’re an opportunist, but that’s not me.” Leaning against the doorframe, Matt watched the other man, who was silent, as ever. Hooch was chewing gum, shades tucked onto his forehead and one strap of the backpack over his shoulder. Dead cool, as always. Matt didn’t expect him to say a word.

“I’m not a romantic, Hooch.” Matt shrugged, half-expected a smirk from the other man, never received it. “Been there, done that, didn’t work out.” He paused. “I’m sorry, man, but this here isn’t what I want either.” Matt glanced down, shook his head. “I don’t want to be one of many stations you pass through, I want to be the central station.” He fell silent.

Hooch opened his mouth and drawled
,
“I understand.”

Matt nodded. Nothing left to say.

Flicking his shades back on, Hooch tapped a couple of fingers against his temple in a mock salute, turned and opened the door. No hesitation when he stepped through and left, closing the door behind him.

Matt stood. Stared at the door. Less than sixty seconds and it was all over. What had he expected? Fuck.

He stood for several more minutes, heard nothing, finally turned and walked into the kitchen to grab a cold beer. He threw himself onto the couc
h but forgot the TV. Just staring
a
t the ceiling for hours, not
thinking about anything, just floating in grey space.

What now? Whatever. Work. Marines. Military. Closet and all that shit. Don’t ask don’t tell. The usual.

Matt’s beer had turned lukewarm in his hand when he was jerked out of his musings by the door bell.

“Fuck,” he frowned, got up despite himself. Hoping it wasn’t anyone from the nearby base. “Leave me the fuck alone, dickheads.” Putting the unopened beer on the table in the miniature hallway, he pushed the buzzer and counted the customary time it took to make it up the stairs, unless whoever it was had taken the elevator. Opening the door, he nearly did a double take into the mirror behind him.

Hooch.

Hooch, pushing his shades back up onto his head, and re-shouldering the bergan.

“Been thinking.” Two words, more than usual. “Been around a bit.” Six, speech worthy of a national holiday. “Looking for a station now.” Eleven, whole fucking fireworks. “Central station.” Thirteen, and the heavens came down for Matt.

“You still offering?” Sixteen, and the world stopped spinning.

Matt stood thinking for a while, not a muscle in his face twitched. He finally stepped aside, gestured the other man to follow him, then closed the door.

“One condition.”

Hooch’s brows rose for a split second.

Matt broke into a grin
, which threatened to split his face. “Promise not to talk too much.”

November 1997, Rebel Stronghold

The pain was like nothing ever before, as if his legs had been ripped off on impact, but worse, much worse, and Hooch knew that he was fucked. He tried to get out of the tangle of parachute and lines, but the pain from his hip and pelvis was so bad, he blackened out for a second.

Scrabbling against the ground, trying to pull away the moment he came to, he pushed himself up to look at his legs, expecting a mass of bones and gore, but nothing. Yet he couldn’t use them to get up and when he tried again, he screamed in agony. He knew, then, that he’d got it this time.

Hooch heard voices and the sound of engines, rapidly getting closer. He frantically cut the entangled parachute ropes, managing to wriggle out of the harness, trying to get out of there. He pulled himself forward on his belly, using his hands, determined to never give up, when they broke through the thicket and a boot stamped onto his hand, amidst angry shouting. Others started to kick, again and again, his head, shoulders, legs, arms and finally his hips.

Then it went black, and the pain didn’t matter anymore.

* * *

“Bozic, Hubert, Sergeant First Class, 546798362.” Hooch forced out, for the tenth or twelfth time. He’d lost count. Lost count, too, of the number of times he’d lost consciousness out when they dropped him, the excruciating pain in his pelvis too much to bear. Or the number of times he’d fought for his life, struggling for air, when his head had been pulled back out of the water butt. Or the number of blows and kicks that had pounded onto his defenseless body, rendering his face a bloodied and swollen mess. Worse than any session, anything he’d ever had done to him. This was real, and more destructive than anything else in his life had ever been before.

A voice shouted once more in broken English: “why did you come here, what are your plans, who else is here, who has given the orders, what are your orders, who are you,” and why and what and wherefore. All he could find in himself was the groaned, whimpered, cried out, screamed and whispered answer:

“Bozic, Hubert, Sergeant First Class, 546798362.”

* * *

They couldn’t get any of the information out of him that they were looking for. No matter how much they beat him, how many cigarettes they extinguished on his body, and how often he passed out from the unspeakable pain of being dropped onto a broken pelvis.

He didn’t know most of those answers, could only hope that he wouldn’t have told. he had known. Nothing to say, nothing to admit to, except for:

“Bozic, Hubert, Sergeant First Class, 546798362.”

Barely audible at times, and hardly human.

He had no idea how close he was to getting killed, didn’t realize that the faction that had captured him was warring with another that wanted to see a better use of the captured resource: him. The resource that would humiliate the US further. Once they’d understood that he wouldn’t talk

couldn’t talk, he could still be useful. As long as he was alive.

They pulled him out of his stupor once more, and he didn’t resist, knew it was useless anyway. He couldn’t move his legs, didn’t dare to twitch lest he fell unconscious again from the pain, and being unconscious meant another barrage of mindless beating. He hardly recognized the camera that was pointed at his face, but when he did, he defiantly raised his head, angry, snarling, but all that came out was a pathetic whimper before a boot impacted in his middle, once the camera was switched off, and he let out a hoarse scream, passing out, cold, on the ground.

* * *

Hundreds of bodies, a small room. One single source of air and light from a tiny, iron-clad window high above. Hundreds and hundreds of bodies, so crowded none of them could do anything but stand.

No space, and he couldn’t sit, couldn’t lie, forced to stand, and the pain was unbearable. So was the stench, the filth, the heat and the smell of death and decay. Excrement, piss from the guards, shit and blood and fear from the prisoners. He couldn’t move, unable to get to the little water that was given out, brackish and teeming with parasites.

One option was death.

Death to stand and die of pain, death to lose the fight and be trampled underfoot, death to ingest the contaminated food and water, death not to gain any sustenance, and death to go insane.

The other was pain.

Pain was better. Pain didn’t kill. If Hooch knew anything, he knew that. He’d learned it scripted into his flesh and blood, and knew, too, that pain always brought relief in the end. Even if it was only the relief of its absence. Eventually.

He refused to be one of the corpses that were shuffled towards the front every morning. The prisoners who had died in the night and whose bodies were handed from one to another, to be thrown outside. Somewhere. Anywhere. Didn’t matter, just corpses.

He mattered, though. Mattered to the memories of a young man who laughed and joked, who shared his bed and his thoughts, who touched him and kissed him, who sometimes fucked him and always offered his body. That perfect, sculpted, smooth body without a single scar. That man who’d told him he’d always be there, always be waiting and would always want him. That man to whose image Hooch clung, every time he blackened out from the pain, pissed and shat into his torn uniform, and threw up from the stench and the little he managed to get into his stomach.

November 1997, United States of America

6 AM and Matt sat bleary eyed at the breakfast counter in his kitchenette, shoveling corn flakes down his throat while watching CNN. Half-heartedly listening to whatever was going on on the screen, while reaching for the carton of milk to pour into his cereal before it got soggy. The milk never hit the bowl.

US soldier. Special Forces. Captured. Video. Demands.

Matt put the carton back down onto the table, reached for the remote to up the volume, but stalled in mid-motion, when the badly done video flickered onto the screen, showing a soldier, soiled US uniform, no name tag, no rank nor affiliation insignia. Face bruised, bloodied, hardly resembling a man anymore. The broken body was held up into the camera while the man’s head threatened to roll back, but then he lifted it, opened his eyes and
…

“No!” Matt jumped up, the remote clattered across the table and onto the floor, followed by the bowl of cornflakes.

Hooch. Bloodied. Beaten. Injured. Tortured.

Hooch.

November 1997, Rebel Stronghold

When Hooch was thrown back into the cell, he didn’t have the strength to scream anymore. The pain had worn him down, out and gone, a shell that hardly managed to cling to those images that had kept him sane. He could see nothing in his memories but flashes of a smile, and a joke he could not remember either. Yet this time, before he hit the bulk of bodies, he was caught by arms that held him up, and dark eyes that searched his own.

“American?” A voice asked, rough and worn, like his own. If only he hadn’t screamed that much and still had the strength to speak.

He nodded.

Another hand pushed something against his lips. He wanted to turn his head away, but more hands held him steady and the first ones poured liquid down his throat. Liquid. Water. Or at least something akin to it, and he swallowed greedily. Taste didn’t matter anymore. Life. Death, he had almost lost the zest for either. Existing, barely.

“We help.”

He didn’t question why they helped the foreigner. He only knew that a pair of arms was holding him up, then three, four, and more, keeping his body off the ground, away from the feet that might trample him to death underneath, should he fall and give up from the pain of standing wedged in between hundreds of bodies; standing with a broken pelvis.

It was the first time he fell asleep for several minutes at a time, the first time in days and nights he kept the little strength he still had.

November 1997, United States of America

It was well after 7 AM, but Matt didn’t care that he’d get the bitching-out of his career, for not turning up to work in time. Couldn’t go in, couldn’t explain. Hooch was not just a ‘best buddy’, but he could never admit to it. Matt’s hands were shaking and he felt sick, barely keeping himself from throwing up.

It had hit him with a sledgehammer. All the way to the core, and the image of Hooch’s broken body and disfigured face, barely alive, had imprinted itself on his mind, until he was unable to see nor smell nor feel anything else.

Yet had to keep himself together somehow and head into work. It was the not-knowing, the keeping up appearance and pretending to wear the mask, that was the worst. But he kept going, stuck in the US.

All he could do was wait.

November 1997, Rebel Stronghold

Hooch’s screams reverberated through the compound. The last man had found his worst weakness, and was manipulating his hips with both hands.

He couldn’t breathe, think, couldn’t faint either, because every time the darkness swallowed him, he was beaten awake, and it was impossible to say which pain was worse. Until it started all over again, those hands, his hips, and the movements that brought him out in cold, stinking sweat; made him foam and splutter and his eyes roll back as he forgot everything about himself and anything that had ever mattered. Screaming, as if the sounds from his hoarse throat could alleviate the pain.

Cut it open, tear it out and scatter it to the winds.

It never worked. Each scream returned to his body, this finite entity that was fragile, weak, and could hardly breathe, let alone force out those words, again and again: “Bozic, Hubert, Sergeant First Class, 546798362.”

They broke his arm when he tried to protect himself, and he finally passed out. Nothing could wake him, he didn’t hear the angry voices, nor witnessed the arguments, didn’t feel the kicks to his kidneys, and didn’t know when he was thrown back into the crowded cell that contained those inexplicable acts of human kindness.

He didn’t fall

couldn’t fall. Too many bodies, those of the dead, the dying and those who were still living against all odds. He didn’t care anymore, except for those thoughts that still remained. The number. The name. The face, the body, the smile, even though he couldn’t remember the voice anymore.

* * *

He could no longer protect his head or face with his arm, and perhaps he should have simply let them kill him by smashing his face and grinding his brain into the ground, but he couldn’t. Just couldn’t allow it, not without trying
…
for what? Returning to that hellhole that didn’t allow breathing, that had the guards above use the prisoners’ bodies as latrines. Filled with the unbelievable stench for which he had no words, no thoughts, except for ‘everything’. It was all and everything and everywhere around him, like a thick molasses that made it impossible to draw in air.

This time, he let himself fall back into the bodies, not trying to find leverage nor hold himself up. Not fighting the pain nor the ultimate relief that would come once he’d slipped low enough, with enough bodies and weight on top of him, to stop breathing forever
…
but those arms were back and pulled him up. He protested, didn’t want them to, how dared they, how…then something pushed against his lips. He opened them, no strength left to find out what it was, and simply swallowed. Whatever. Food. Water. Poison. Excrement, it didn’t matter. Liquid followed, and again he swallowed, head rolling from side to side, until he managed to focus, his eyes no more than swollen slits, met by another pair, so dark, before he lost his sight and slipped out of pain, fear, stench and filth, and whatever was crawling across his body, and living inside himself. Slack in the many arms that held him up, until the morning, when

against all odds

he once again was not amongst those who got shuffled towards the front, out of the door and onto the pile.

* * *

Hooch almost passed out again when he was pushed through the bodies, towards the front. Clinging to consciousness with the thought that he would not be another corpse to be discarded. No. He wouldn’t. He would survive another bout of torture. But instead of being pulled out and taken to be interrogated again, nothing happened. Partly being held up, partly leaning against the solid mass of bodies, he looked up, blinking against the sudden light. It hurt. Hurt his eyes, and a thought wormed its way into his broken mind: astonishment that anything could hurt in a new way.

“Sergeant First Class Hubert Bozic, US Delta Force?” A female voice asked.

She was pretty, he thought, once his eyes had adjusted to the light, and he wondered why the hell the last shreds of his memories of the young man had been replaced with a woman. Blond. Face illuminated by something. Flashlight. Not sunlight. Hurting his eyes. Still.

“Do you understand me?”

He nodded, the question didn’t require him to speak. The name and number were the only answers left in his mind anyway, everything else had been burnt away. Beaten and kicked, punched, drowned and smashed away. Or just died away, amongst the stench of decay and the agony that only those arms could alleviate.