SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (3 page)

Daley and Nick stumbled forward through green grass that topped their boots. It had taken Daley two grueling days to bring his older brother sixteen miles through rough terrain. All morning they had waded through fields of watery land that had once been planted with rice. Far off to their right they could see a burned and demolished village. Ahead was the ragged edge of another forest Daley thought he remembered. If he was correct, the rear echelon of their platoon was on the other side. They might reach it by sundown.

At first glance the two brothers looked similar because of the American uniforms and their build, but on closer inspection no one would believe they were relatives. Leading the way to the blessed relief of the forest shade was Daley, six feet tall, broad-shouldered, and ruggedly handsome.

During the last months in Vietnam he had let his raven black hair grow long and shaggy. It had a natural wave and curled on the ends in the center of his thick neck. He was the sort of man who would never be teased about the length of his hair by either the other soldiers or his immediate commanders. He had too much self-control ever to come to blows over snide remarks, but no one had the bad judgment to chance any kind of criticism of Daley Ringer.

On the other hand, Nick was blond and fair. From repeated exposure to the sun his skin was peeling layer after layer. Where his brother was swarthy, Nick favored their mother, a lily-white woman who always looked anemic. Nick also did not command as much power of presence as his brother. Only when a joking heckler happened to look into Nick's blue eyes did he lose his nerve and let his taunts trail into apology. Nick's stony, unrelenting gaze saved many men from the beating of their lives. It was evident that neither brother could be bullied or broken. Because of this tension they created, they had been a team from the beginning. It was whispered, "Get the Ringer brothers on your side of this war and you got it made. They’re a fuckin' front-line committee."

"Come on, Nick. Not far now," Daley encouraged. He was taking an awful chance camping in the shade and he knew it, but Nick was out of his head, and part of the reason was lack of proper nourishment. They had to brave the danger of an ambush to get something hot in Nick’s stomach.

As the last of the coffee boiled in the coals, Daley poured a box of chicken-and-rice soup into a cup of water. This was the last of their C-rations. If help was not on the other side of the forest, they would be reduced to eating roots or chancing night raids on any village they could find.

Nick began to spit again. First to his left, then to his right. He scrunched up his face, pursed his lips, and spit.

“Quit it, Nick," Daley said quietly.

"They won't go away if I quit."

Daley stirred the soup and set it farther back on the coals to simmer. Ever since leaving the cave he had heard about the horned and ranged demons. He was not only tired of hearing about them and their hideous games, but he was beginning to believe Nick might really see the creatures. He wondered if this meant he too was cracking.

"Coffee's done." Daley was trying to keep Nick's attention focused.

"I don't want it."

"There's some soup too."

"I shouldn't eat it," Nick said.

Daley swiveled on his heels to peer at his brother. This was a new twist. Before Nick had eaten anything he was offered. "Why not?" Daley asked.

"If I eat, they'll crawl in my stomach and I'll never get them out." Nick sounded surprised Daley had to ask such an obvious question.

Daley sighed and turned to watch the instant coffee bubble in the water. "You know that isn't so."

Nick spit again. Right, then left. His blue eyes were dull. He was filthy. He had not let Daley wash him in the river they had stumbled upon, and the Cong's blood was dried on has uniform and face. At night when his sweat evaporated, the cloth grew stiff and creaked as he moved. He stank worse than the enemy.

Nick stood up abruptly. "I have to take a leak, watch the spirits. You make them stay here so I can be alone.”

"Sure, Nick. I'll make them stay. I'll throw the bastards in the fire," Daley assured his brother.

Nick chuckled, but it sounded more like a growl. "I wouldn't try that if I were you.” Daley lifted one eyebrow as he shuffled into the forest. Before killing the Cong three nights before he had looked strong. Now he stooped and slouched, his head drooping, his whole body changing so that he no longer looked like himself. He was more like a beaten drunk, stinking of defeat and misery.

Nick lurched from the shadows, zipping up his pants. He slumped onto a rotting log, his ankles crossed, hands in his lap.

“I can draw you a picture,” he said, giving Daley a calculated glance from beneath pale blond lashes.

“Draw me a picture of what?”

“Seth.”

Daley shook his head as if to clear it. Half of what Nick said made no sense whatever. “Who’s Seth?” he asked.

Nick paused to spit to each side of him. “This fucking demon, that’s who.” He took a stick from the ground and held it like a pencil.

“Oh, Nick, please. I’m too tired for this,” Daley protested.

“What?” Nick’s head came up in surprise. “Don’t you want to know what he looks like?”

Daley poured coffee. There was no use antagonizing Nick. He would have to leave the problem to the medics. “Okay, show me,” he said.

The stick snaked across the dirt. Daley bent over the childlike drawing when Nick ended with a flourish.

The stick protruded from what appeared to be the throat of a beast.

Daley rubbed his chin in contemplation. He saw a moon face, deeply creased, with hooked teeth, and ridged horns on the head. What kind of nightmare had Nick purchased with the Vietnamese deaths?

“Even Charlie looks better than that,” Daley said, trying for some humor.

Nick kicked at the drawing and dirt flew into the air.

“Maybe they’ll get impaled on some pongee sticks, Nick. That should do away with the demons.”

“You shouldn’t make jokes, Daley. They hear every word you say.” Nick made faces at the space he thought his torturers inhabited.

“Here, eat this,” Daley urged. “We’ve got to get moving. The Cong might have already seen the smoke from our fire.”

Nick apparently had forgotten about things crawling into his stomach to get to his food. He slurped down the chicken and rice with a wolf’s appetite.

Once the small fire was thoroughly tamped down and covered with brush and the cardboard boxes carefully buried, Daley took Nick by the arm to lead him into the jungle.

As they made their way through the tangled and contorted undergrowth, Daley began to seriously consider what the army would do with Nick. There was a hospital called the Eighty-fifth and Evac in Phu Bai. That was where the dying and severely maimed were sent, but very few were evacuated from the Eighty-fifth.

They did not live long enough for evacuation. Surely that’s not where they’ll send Nick, Daley thought.

S.O.P., standard operational procedure, for someone like Nick would be a check-over at the Red Cross station at the rear and then shipment to Japan or Okinawa. If he was really out of it, they would send him to the States. Daley was sure his brother’s military career had ended back in the tunnel. He had not meant to cry about the efficient killing of the enemy, but it was the look on Nick’s face, an expression of maniacal glee and satisfaction, that had frightened him. It would have scared the most courageous of men, but it had broken Daley’s heart.

He expected Nick to recover. Other soldiers had broken. For a large percentage of them it was merely shock, a passing phase. Nick would come out of it, shuck the little clutching spirits, and be all right again.

But it could take a while. And Vietnam was not the place to get over a spell of madness. It was madness, definitely, Daley reflected. War was government-sanctioned mass murder. He suspected none of the survivors would ever be entirely normal when they got home. Even himself. He was, in some ways, as changed as Nick.

Neither of them spoke as they trudged through the emerald, dense forest. Daley focused on each step he took, his trained eyes watching for traps, his ears listening for any unusual rustle, his nostrils twitching as they smelled for Cong. Being careful and observant was not always enough, however, and a man could lose his leg or his balls despite every precaution. Charlie was clever, discreet, a deadly saboteur. C-ration boxes and cans were often used by the Cong for a mine. A grenade was placed inside, the pin pulled, and a thin trip wire or string was attached to the shallowly buried green container. High weeds hid the lines and the man walking behind suffered from the explosion. Often bullets were buried with a detonator; all it took was one footfall and a man was crippled for life. These were things Daley knew he was powerless to evade. If he or Nick came across one of these tricks, there would be nothing to do but accept slow death.

By twilight Daley once again believed in Lady Luck. They had made it through another day without mishap. They were both hungry and they were running out of fresh water, but they were both in one piece.

As the trees thinned and the setting sun’s shafts of golden light poured onto the path they were following, Daley breathed a sigh of relief and quickened his pace. On the other side of this goddamn forest should be the rear echelon. And help, food, shelter, and medical attention for Nick.

Daley was almost running as he broke through a waist-high glut of green vegetation. He stopped abruptly, his breath coming in huffs, and Nick ran into this back. “Well, there it is, Nick. We made it.” Nick came around to Daley’s side. A mile away down a rutted, dusty road was an encampment perched on a slight rise of the land, surrounded by rows of concertina wire.

The two brothers turned away from the sight to watch an army jeep coming toward them, bumping and joggling out of a dust cloud that hung on its tail like a trailing tornado.

“Well, look at this. We got ourselves a ride home.”

Just as the last word left Daley’s mouth a tremendous blast rocked the jeep onto its side. It looked like a child’s toy careening off the road, skidding through weeds, and finally tumbling to its top in a crunch of bending metal.

“Fucking land mine!” Daley shouted. He hurried off for the destroyed heap.

Nick stayed behind, hands at his side, eyes unblinking, steady on the wreck. “Seth did it,” he explained to no one. He spit in the direction of the jeep.

Daley skirted the hollow the explosion had made in the road and rushed to the overturned vehicle.

“Anybody alive in there? Hey, are you hurt?”

He fell to his knees and peered inside while the rear wheels of the jeep whirled madly. The driver was dead.

The arm facing Daley was missing and only a beautiful ivory socket bone showed its white eye. The steering wheel was smashed in two, pressing like an unyielding pillow into the man’s stomach. He was bleeding from the mouth, ears, and eyes.

Daley heard someone groaning and scrambled into the weeds toward the south.

“Hey, man, let me help you.”

A young lieutenant sprawled on his pack, an ugly gash on his forehead bleeding profusely.

“Heh, heh.” The lieutenant pretended to laugh. “The cocksuckers got us, didn’t they?” Another jeep screeched to a halt as four men jumped to the road. Ignoring Nick, they split up, two of them going to the overturned jeep and two, rifles aimed, going to where Daley sat holding the lieutenant’s head in his lap, his hand over the cut.

“It’s Tidwell. Son of a bitch!” one of the men said.

Daley gently lifted the cradled head and let the men carry the wounded soldier to the jeep.

“That one’s a goner,” he called to the men searching the wreckage.

They turned and came toward Daley, their M-14s glinting from the last rays of the sun.

“Where the fuck did you come from? And your buddy over there.” The soldier was upset, he was scared, and he was suspicious.

“We got separated from our platoon near Quang Ngai,” Daley said as he stood up.

“And you made it back?” The solider was incredulous.

“Yeah, we made it back.”

The two men looked with disbelief first at Daley and then across the road to the silent, waiting Nick.

“
Him
.” The man indicated Nick with his rifle. “He’s got something on him. What’d he do, fall into a shit pond?”

“It’s blood. He needs help. He’s my brother, Nick. Nick Ringer. He…” Daley’s voice faltered, but the look on his face expressed a hidden truth.

“Cracked?” the soldier asked sympathetically.

Daley nodded and started across the road.

The second jeep had made a U-turn and slowed for the two soldiers who had been talking to Daley to jump aboard.

The driver yelled, “We gotta get this man to the medics. Start walking and we’ll be back to pick you up.” Daley lifted a weary hand in acknowledgment. As he neared Nick he heard his brother mumbling. “It’s all over now, Nick,” Daley said, taking his brother by the arm. “The whole goddamn shooting match is over for you. But I want you to remember. Hey…” He shook Nick’s arm to get his attention. “Listen to me. You’re going to be all right. Do you hear me? The killing’s over. That garrote…” Daley touched Nick’s buttoned-up shirt with his fingertips.

“I want you to give it to me. We don’t have to tell them everything.”

“You can’t have it.”

“Now Nick, I’m not screwing around with you. I want you to hand that thing over. I’ll take care of it,” Daley promised.

“What about the demons? They..."

“You can’t kill them with a wire, can you?” Daley interrupted. “Well,
can you
?” He heard himself shouting and flinched.

Nick lowered his head. Daley looked at the blond, matted hair and remembered the droplets of blood shining in the light of the cigarette lighter. “Give it to me,” he repeated.

Nick undid two buttons and slowly reached inside his shirt. He brought out the garrote and held it before his eyes, mesmerized by its gentle rhythmic swinging.

Daley took the wire from Nick’s fingers and stuffed it into his own shirtfront. He patted Nick on the back and guided him back to the road.