Killed In Action

 

A short story by

 

David H. Roche

© 2005

 

"There's nothing to do.  I'm bored."  Tommy Schnieder whined to his mother.

 

It's only 12 o'clock," Marjorie Schnieder said under her breath and wiped the perspiration from her forehead.  "It's 85 degrees, the second day of summer vacation and he's bored already!  God help me."  Looking at her 12 year old son she recalled how it felt to be bored at that age. She sighed and asked:  "Doesn't Gary have any ideas?"

 

"I don't know mom.  We did just about everything yesterday."

 

At that moment they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the hollow wooden floor of the front porch.  Then there was a loud knocking on the door.

 

"There's Gary," Tommy said, and ran to the door.

 

Gary whispered something through the screen and Tommy opened the door and stepped out on the porch where they talked secretively.  In a few minutes, Tommy ran back inside letting the screen door slam behind him.  Seconds later he ran out through the kitchen past his mother with his plastic M16, saying:  "Gary and me are going to play war."  The screen door opened and slapped shut and the footsteps of the two boys sounded like drum beats on the wooden porch and then ceased as they ran off.

 

Gary and Tommy ran to the corner and then stopped short of going around and hid behind the hedge of Mrs. Carlson's yard.

 

"Ssh," Gary held a finger up to his lips.  "There he is."  The two boys peaked slowly around the corner of the hedge.

 

Tommy spoke as he looked in the direction of the lone figure pacing back and forth in front of his house.  "Crazy people are scary.  He looks mean."

 

"I know," Gary answered.  "I heard mom and dad talking about how he went crazy in the war.  Dad said he went out on patrol and everybody in his squad, except him, was killed.  Now that's all he does."  The two boys watched him pace back and forth.

 

Tommy looked at the man.  He had seen him many times before but had always avoided him.  The things that he had heard made him feel creepy.  There was nothing about him that would make him appear friendly to a 12 year old. 

 

He was stocky, with a red face; his dad said it was from drinking too much.  As was his custom he was walking stiffly back and forth on the sidewalk in front of his parent's house when he was not down at the corner at Jitzes bending his elbow telling stories and arguing about the war.

 

"My father says," Gary continued, "That he thinks he's still on patrol in Viet Nam and that he thinks he can get his buddies back alive."

 

"That is crazy.  Fairtown doesn't look anything like a jungle," Tommy answered.

 

They watched their quarry for a few minutes and then Gary held his plastic M16 over his head and pumped it up and down a few times:  "Well are we going to attack him?"

 

Tommy who had been eager for adventure before was more apprehensive now.  "I don't know." I don't think I want to," he answered.

 

"Come on," Gary prodded him, "All we have to do is sneak up from tree to tree, and when we get close enough blast him and run.  There's nothing to it."

 

"What if he goes crazy and fights back?" 

 

"He isn't going to fight back.  He doesn't have a gun.  And besides, we can outrun him any day.  Look how he walks, he's like a puppet."

 

Joseph Amaretta's movements were rigid.  Every impulse was incapacitated by a barrage of mental scenes that bubbled up from deep inside of him.  Sometimes he was here in Fairtown and sometimes he was there in Viet Nam. Sometimes he waved to friends in cars, sometimes he caught sight of VC taking cover or grouping just at the edge of his vision.  Right now he was becoming acutely aware of the two pajama clad VC crouching in the elephant grass 20 yards away;  his senses were becoming fully operative and his training was taking over.  He cursed himself for being separated from his unit unarmed.  "Mistakes kill people," he repeated the familiar phrase to himself.

 

He made his way between the shadows to headquarters, cursing the pressure cooking heat that bathed him in sweat. 

 

"He went in the house," Tommy said in feigned disappointment.

 

Gary persisted, much to Tommy's chagrin:  "I bet he'll be back out.  He's always out front.  He probably had to go to the bathroom.  He's been at Jitzes all morning."

 

"I feel creepy," Tommy replied, trying unsuccessfully not to sound frightened.

 

"Oh come on, let's wait and see.  I'm sure he'll be right back out.  Don't be a chicken."

 

"Alright."  But Tommy had a sense of foreboding.

 

Passing his mother, Sergeant Amaretta saluted and went directly to the rifle cabinet.  It was locked.  "God damn it.  Who ordered these weapons to be secured?  This is a war zone!"  He ripped the door from its hinges and grabbed a rifle and quickly loaded shells into it.

 

"Joey!  No!  Not again."  His mother's voice was frantic and filled with resignation.  This was not the first time her son had become delusional. 

 

"It's Victor Charley sir.  I saw two of them, probably scouting.  They were on the perimeter of the camp.  Requesting permission to go after them sir."

 

"Oh no Joey baby. No.  God no." 

 

Sergeant Amaretta replied:  "Sir I recognized them.  It's the same ones that hit Delta Company.  I'm going.  Captain Greer is already there.  They're trapped."

 

"Joey" His mother's voice faltered.  "They'll put you back in the hospital."  She sobbed and tried to grab him and keep him from going out the door.

 

"I'm sorry Major.  You'll have to kill me to keep me from being with my squad.  I've got to get to them."  He swung the rifle butt and knocked his mother sprawling unconscious to the floor and rushed outside to join his squad.

 

"There he is" Gary nudged Johnny.  "I' told you he'd be back out."

 

At the same moment their mouths fell open

 

"He's got a gun."  Johnny gasped. "Is it real?"  He could feel the heat rise up his neck and his face redden.  There was also a knot tightening in his stomach.

 

"I don't know.  How would I know?  Look at him now."  Gary was not as confident as before either.

 

Sergeant Amaretta was crouched and moving fluidly through the yard, barely visible in the splotches of shadow and bright sunlight.  All his awkwardness and stiffness had vanished.

 

"He looks like he's hunting something," Johnny said.

 

Gary began to stutter.  "I ... I think we should get out of here, this is getting scary.  That is a real gun."

 

At that moment Sergeant Amaretta stepped around the corner of the hedge and in one precise movement raised his rifle and fired. The impact of the bullet hit Gary and spun him around, dropping him in his tracks.

 

"Ah...."  Gary's voice trailed off.

 

The roar disrupted the placid summer afternoon.  Terror stricken Tommy dropped his rifle and ran for home.

 

Sergeant Amaretta ran along the line of the hedge crouching under the return of enemy fire that whistled past him.  He stopped at Gary's body and looked for I.D. and papers.  Finding none he stepped away, took aim, and blew a hole in the enemy's head.

 

Tommy burst into the kitchen screaming hysterically.  "He killed Gary and he's coming after me."

 

Marjorie Schneider looked up from the kitchen counter where she was cutting the crust for an apple pie.  "Tommy what was that noise.  Have you two been playing with fire crackers?  How many times have I told you....?"  The look of terror on her son's face stopped her in mid sentence. 

 

"He killed Gary and he's coming after me."  Tommy repeated himself with an increased sense of terror in his voice.  His eyes were bulging from their sockets.  "He thinks he's back in Viet Nam."

 

Marjorie now understood that something was wrong but did not comprehend what he was trying to tell her.  At that moment Sergeant Amaretta kicked in the front door and burst into the house. 

 

Marjorie screamed.  He fired and missed.  The roar of the gun was deafening in the small kitchen.  He squeezed the trigger again and the click of the firing pin was the only sound.

 

He quickly took inventory of those in the room.  There were two VC; a man and a woman.  The woman had a knife and the man was unarmed.  Immediately he lunged forward swinging the butt of the rifle at the woman.  The impact of the wooden stock against her head sent her sprawling to the floor.  He stopped and picked up the knife and crammed it into her stomach, ripping her open the length of her belly.  Blood oozed from the gash and her intestines slowly slid out of her belly onto the floor.

 

Tommy was immobilized with fright and shaking in horror.  "Please." He looked at his mother's body and back to Sergeant Amaretta and pleaded for his life.  "We were only playing."  He began to cry and held his hands.

 

Immediately Sergeant Amaretta turned his attention to the unarmed VC and leaped at him; breaking his face with the rifle butt.  Tommy collapsed unconscious onto the floor.

 

"God damned little dinks; I'll get every last one of you bastards." Going to the window he shouted to his squad: "I'll get you out of here guys."  He returned to Tommy and drove the knife through his throat, pinning him to the floor.  The room became quiet; Sergeant Amaretta's breathing was the only sound that could be heard as the kitchen began to fill with the sickish sweet odors of drying blood and exposed bowels. 

 

Outside there was the sound of approaching sirens.  In front of the house three marked police cars pulled up and screeched to a stop.  Armed officers exited and deployed rapidly into positions behind the shrubbery and trees surrounding the house. 

 

Peering through the living room window Sergeant Amaretta thought:  "Reinforcements, we're all going to be trapped again.  Shit."  He felt the panic he had felt many years before rising up inside of him. 

 

Frantically he ran upstairs and peered out through the window of the bathroom.  In the dense undergrowth in the jungle below he could make out the VC spreading out to attack his position.  He saw the first few approaching on the left coming up the steps to the porch.  He heard them entering the downstairs and their shouting.  "They're dead.  He's upstairs."  He heard the door slam shut.

 

This was the moment he had been stuck in for 25 years.  Today he would free himself at last.  This time both he and his men would get out alive.  If not he would die with them.  That is where he belonged. He knew this in his heart and there was a peaceful calm that now infused him.  Today was homecoming day. 

 

A second later a tear gas canister exploded through the bathroom window and erupted into a choking cloud that quickly filled the room.

 

Stumbling and groping his way back down the stairs he fell head long into the kitchen landing on top of Marjorie Schneider's body.  Smeared with blood and feces he scrambled on all fours across the floor into the front room.

 

A fiery blur of water filled his eyes as he peered out of the window at the battle scene.  He was overcome with remorse again for having let his squad down.  He stifled his panic as he watched the VC in the yard closing in on his position.  Then he screamed at the top of his lungs:  "Look out, you're surrounded."  He could hear their cursing and cries in the withering cross fire and watched them falling.  He began to sob.

 

In the seemingly hopeless situation he made one last effort and burst out of the door shouting at the top of his lungs:  "God damn you gooks".  He made about 20 paces carrying the unloaded deer rifle before Officer Whitworth, the Fairtown Police Department sharpshooter, shot him through the heart with one bullet.

 

He fell dead in the front lawn on 14 Elm Street.  But at last he was where he belonged.  Sergeant Thomas Amaretta had rejoined his squad in the jungles of South East Asia on a quiet afternoon in Fairtown. He had made it back.

 

 

© 2005

David H. Roche