Armageddon: DOOM PATROL (Chapter 2 up)

[Shroom Man 777]

CHAPTER II: HEARTS AND MINDS


Somewhere in Hell, 55 klicks from Dis

The village was where the human slaves had dwelled whenever the daemons were not busy with them. With the death of Satan and the liberation of Hell, courtesy of America and some hired help, the village had become a freetown following President George W. Bush’s lauded emancipation proclamation address to all Hell. After an eternity of tormentation, that village and so many others like it finally had a chance to experience truth, freedom and democracy. That was what the Salvation War was all about, baby.

All over the flatland were mud huts. Mud huts made out of human shit. Shit huts. The Baldricks had the humans use their own excrement for housing in order to amuse themselves. Sometimes when this was not enough, the Baldricks also had the humans eat their own construction material, which was a real riot. The humans sculpted the material while it was still wet, using straw and wood frames to support the pliant feces much like the frame of a paper mache parade float. As the shit dried, hell dust got stuck on to the solidifying shit, and when the process was complete the shit huts gained the telltale reddish complexion characteristic of all things Hell.

“How sturdy do you think those shit huts are?” Private Phant asked out loud as he manned the Doomvee’s tail guns.

“I don’t know. Let’s find out. Harvokeff, avante!” Sgt. Strak hollered. “Ramming speed!”

“Si señor! Ola!” Harvokeff affirmed as he revved the Doomvee’s engines and sent their armored vehicle veering towards the nearest mud hut. He honked the horns a couple of times to warn the locals that they were about to run over one of their homes, and a second later the Doomvee’s bulletproof bumper plowed through the feeble fecalithic formation like an armored fighting vehicle through an impoverished home made out of human waste. The Doomvee came to a stop amidst the dust and rubble. Turned out, the shit hut was just newly made and they had to use the windshield wipers to get some of the smears off. Harvokeff laughed and said something in Mexican. “Esplosivo!”

“Mang! That was a disappointment!” Private Phant sighed. “So much for Brown Thunder.”

“Turns out shit huts made of shit aren’t up to OSHA standards, who knew?” Sgt. Strak shrugged. “Come on, let’s dismount and start winning hearts and minds!”

So they did. Clad in armor and skeletal respirator face masks, wielding strange weapons that belched fire and death, they emerged from the positive pressured inverse-osmosis interior of the Doomvees like hell knights out of iron chariots. A crowd had gathered, Second Lifers from all ages and eras of humanity, from the pre-historic and pre-Cambrian eras up to the modern times. Most had never seen such things that modern man took for granted, and to them the men and machines of the United States Marine Corps were utterly beyond their ken - far more terrific and terrible than anything all the powers of Hell could muster.

The peasants were awed by this display of magnificence. Quivering, they got down to their knees and knelt prostrate. On their prostates.

“Man, what’s up with these guys?” Private Phant chuckled. Under his ominous respirator, the sounds that came out made the peasants even more fearful for their lives.

“Simple,” the previously silent and unseen fourth man of their Doomvee, Private Last Class Piles Sarevokerritch, uttered as he got out of the Doomvee. “In accordance with the USMC’s Hell Doctrine, the denizens of Hell - Baldrick and second-life human alike - can be made to comply with sufficient shows of force owing to their primitive intellects. If we show them how superior our technology is, which to them will be indiscernible from magic, then we will gain their respect and cooperation. This works better in Baldricks, since their primitive life-experiences are far more uniform than the second-lifers who may come in all ‘age groups’, so relatively more modern humans won’t be as intimidated while Bronze Agers from the Fertile Crescent will probably react much like the Baldricks. But according to the US Census Bureau’s Hell division, the strata of second-lifer society can be determined roughly geographically -”

“Shut it, pointdexter!” Captain Coffee growled as he emerged from the other Doomvee. “If I wanted an info dump, I’ll take a shit in the latrine and use the Washington Post to wipe my ass.”

“Or, alternatively, we could just talk to one of those limp-dicked science majors.” Corporal Zak Anderson chimed in. “Am I right?”

“Wrong,” Captain Coffee shot back. Thanks to that goddamn insubordinate Sargeant Strak, now everyone was following his bad habits. “Cause nobody wants to talk to any of those limp-dicked science majors. Now just go do your damned jobs and win me some hearts and poontangs. More the latter, fuck the former.”

They unloaded their cargo from the Doomvees. Cratefulls of junk, useless Earth junk, that would be invaluable to the denizens of Hell. In return for these junks, the little peasant hellions could repay them in gold and jewels, which were abundant in Hell and thus next to worthless. Ship the jewels back to Earth, and they'd make millions.

"Come one, come all!" Coffee shouted. He pulled out a microphone, which made his already respirator-garbled voice all the more booming and imposing. To the natives, it was though the voice of a god had come upon them. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, dead children of all ages! Feast your eyes on the magnificence and splendors of Earth That Was!”

They laid it down on the tactical tables they had brought with them. All over were boxes full of Walkman cassette players and laserdiscs, huge floppies, boom boxes, and stacks old pornography that nobody on Earth wanted because the pictured ladies lacked the enormous surgerized titties that were all the rave now. Well, one of the magazines was a more up to date issue with a more fashionable woman whose breasts were absolutely swollen, and many of the Second Lifer men gazed at it covetously – having never ever seen such bountiful bosoms in their mortal lives.

“Well, what do you say, misters?” Coffee grinned as he held the magazine just out of reach of the peasants' paws, taunting them with it while leafing through the raunchy pages. “One ruby per page!”

“Ooh! Ooh!” the peasants went and offered fistfulls of daemonic dineros. They also squabbled with each other whilst those who couldn't afford such post-modern pornographies had to contend themselves with merely whacking off from a distance. The poor primitive peasants jostled to be first in line. “Me! Me! Meee!”

“Hahahaha!” Coffee laughed. One of the Second Lifers got the magazine after winning the bidding war, but as he flipped through the sticky pages another peasant tried to pull the stained mag off him and accidentally tore it. A fight broke out between them as the magazine's new owner shrieked in rage and tried to gouge the other guy's eyes out. Coffee broke it up, not that he minded as he was having the time of his life. Hell was the best thing that ever happened to him. When the Message had gone through, the annoying shitty brigade chaplain was one of the first ones to eat his gun. The way it had gone down, the whole thing made their secret frag list moot. DADT sure wasn't going to be a problem now. Oh yeah.

“Hey mang! What gives! This Walkman is a great gizmo, man! It's state of the art! The cassettes are something you primitive screwballs can't even comprehend!” Private Phant shouted over the din of haggling peasants.

“Fuck you, man. I lived in the 1980s, so I know what a Walkman is!” one of the peasant guys shat back, some guy with a Bronx accent. A Bronx accent, in Hell? What?

“1980s? Well, maybe I can give you this tape full of Micheal Jackson songs and we'll call it a deal?” Phant lied. It was his sister's mix tape, with her singing off-tune to Celine Dion musics.

“Take a hike, bozo. I already heard all of that stuff back when I was still alive, man. Wanna see me do the moonwalk? Gimme something new.” Damn. If Phant hadn't known better (and he didn't), he would've thought that the Bronx guy was hanging out with ancient Hebrews or Israelites due to the skill of his haggling. “Like, what songs do you have in the 90s?”

“Why? Never heard any 90s stuff?” This was promising, Phant thought. He sifted through his pile of musics but couldn't find any. He remembered selling them to a couple of twin girls who died in the 1990s, from leukemia if he remembered right. They bought all the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls cassettes he had. Crazy kids. Now he had nothing. Shit.

“No, I got mugged at Jersey and bled to death in an alleyway. I was stuffed in a garbage can one minute, and whammo, next moment a bunch of daemons were sticking these big barbed things in my mouth. Couldn't see what it was 'cause there was this weird gunk all over my face. I think it was hanging between their legs. What the hell. Talk about a major readjustment, hah!”

“Look mac, I feel really sorry for you. How's about I throw in this Laserdisc? You see those tiny shiny circle things people use nowadays? Those things they call CDs? Well, this Laserdisc is ten times bigger, so it must be ten times better. It's yours if you just quit being being such a cheapskate and fork over the cash, daddy-o!” Phant held up the Laserdisc for the Bronx dude to check out.

“Well, I guess it'd make a good mirror,” the mang finally relented after examining his reflection on the smooth surface. “Okay, alright. Why not? I'd buy that for a dollar.”

Finally. Easy money. They sold Walkmans and stuff since the junk would easily get worn down by the helldust. After a month, they'd be back, sell a whole new load of junk to the guys with broken cassette players, and get even richer. It was like planned obsolescence. In Hell. Hell, this wasn't even taking into account all the batteries they sold. Flashlights were a real killer. Clocks too, since the ancient Greeks couldn't use their sundials in Hell. Some of the superstitious ones smashed their talking clocks, claiming it to be evil magic, but they just shot them and had them pay for broken merchandise. You break it, you buy it. Or else the United States Marine Corps broke you. As the saying went.

Private Phant stuffed the gold ingots in his tactical webbing pouches. If he kept this up, he'd have enough money to put his kids through college! And he wasn't even married yet!

Meanwhile Sarevokerritch and Zak were stuck with the more menial labors of setting up their own tactical table and heating up a Marine Corps Mark 1 Mod 0 Theater Combat Grill. A Marine grill, a Gyrene grill. They began sifting through ice boxes full of rancid carnival-grade meat and slopping them on the barbecue. The pork-beefs began sizzling and emanating an aroma of frying. The smell stirred something deep inside the Second-Lifers, something that had been buried in thousands of years of torture, lost but not yet forgotten. The strange sensation entered their nostrils and the bygone memories of eating Earth foods and Earth meats in their past lives made their mouths salivate. Since hippocrabs tasted like shit, this old-new sensation struck the Second Lifers as something strange and they did not know what to do when drool started coming out of their mouths. Some found it fascinating and began playing with the slime oozing out of their pie holes. Others didn't notice at all as glistening saliva dribbled down their chins.

The second they caught a whiff of the meats, the squabbling peasants shifted their attention from the musty old prono mags and went over to the Marine Corps' barbecue stall. Sarevokerritch and Zak had aprons over their BDUs, and they began pulling paper plates and plastic spoons and sporks out of their tactical webbing pouches. It was for naught, for the Second Lifers ate with their hands, with neither plate nor utensils to aid in their feast unknown. A few screamed for the meats were still hot, burning their fingers and tongues. Most of them didn't mind, having been long desensitized by centuries of pain and torture. They savagely bit off huge chunks of meat, stuffing it down their gullets in a way not much different from the Baldricks in their mastications. Many knelt and groaned, for they had never tasted Earth's meat for so long. To be reunited with the beefs and porks was nigh orgasmic for some of them. They licked the fat oils off their fingers and craved for more meat, more beef, more pork. More.

“I hope they don't figure out its carnival meats.” Zak muttered to Sarevokerritch. “I hope the sauce hides the horrible taste. I wouldn't feed that shit to my dog.”

“Don't worry,” Sarevokerritch reassured him. “After living in Hell for thousands of years, most of these people have forgotten what Earth meat really tastes like. All they have are faint impressions and vague memories. To them, this carnival meat will be as good as the real thing. In fact, if we keep this up, I think they'll prefer the carnival meat over meat that isn't unfit for human consumption.”

“Well, since they're just Second Lifers, I guess they don't really count as real humans,” Zak commented.

“Nope. They don't.” Sarevokerritch nodded sagely.

While the two of them were having a self-congratulatory butt-slap session, Staff Sargeant Strak stayed back while shaking his head at what he beheld before him. He stood in the shade, which was weird since the place was a flatland and there was nothing blocking the sunlight. Hell didn't even have a sun. Strak looked up, just to be sure. Hell didn't even have clouds, yet it was overcast. Weird.

“Huh?” He noticed something peculiar coming towards them from behind the crowd of Second Lifers. He got on his radio. “Hey fatties, we got incoming at 9 o'clock. Look sharp.”

He shouldered his rifle and took a look with his optics. He was half-expecting it to be a Baldrick. His experience in Afghanistan dealing with the Talibanis had honed his senses, taught him to be on the lookout for ambushes. Baldrick didn't have IEDs, but it didn't take an EFP to make you KIA. A Baldrick chucking a spear into your face was probably just as deadly as any three letter acronym, not that Strak wanted to find out.

However, what was in his sights wasn't something in the shape and form of a Baldrick. It was a man. A hu-man. In an expensive-looking two-piece suit and tie, treading on the Hell dirt on loafers. His clothes strangely untouched by the Hell dust. A fancily dressed Second Lifer? No, or else he wouldn't be breathing through a respirator on his face (unless he was an asthmatic Second Lifer?). Or wearing sunglasses.

The man in black went over to the Marines' meat booth and bought himself a steak on a plate. Paid Sarevokerritch with dollars too. Then the man ate his meal using a spoon and spork. With his back towards Strak, it wasn't clear whether or not he was eating with or without his respirator. Though, of course he ate without his respirator. It would be stupid if he didn't. After a while he got up and turned around, with the respirator still on his face.

Then just like that, the man in black walked away. Strak noticed that the shade was gone, and it wasn't so overcast anymore.

“Well.” Strak looked on incredulously. “Who knew?”

The man in black walked across the desert town, and the Marines followed. He led them to the back of the town, and when they reached him they again noticed that the place was under a shady gloom of nonexistent cloudy overcast. There were few shit huts here, older than the rest, crumbling and decrepit. Unused. The ground was bone dry, and etched on its cracked surface were tire marks, though not like that of Doomvee tires. Parked behind one of the shit huts was a black SUV, featureless save for the minigun on its roof.

The man in black walked past his SUV, and the Marines continued following from a distance. Not too near, not too far. After the SUV, past all the shit huts of the town, was a clearing. A courtyard marked by a circle of stones that were its boundaries. In the middle of that courtyard was a dead tree. A withered Hell tree, misshapen and bleached bone white, with skeletal jointed branches reaching up to the unforgiving sky, clawing at the very firmament with fingertips of barbed thorns.

Under the tree's shade was a similarly misshapen form. Bleeding green blood from its wounds, which dripped on the gnarled roots of the dead tree. It was a daemon. Shackled, with iron spikes rammed through its hands and feet, and chains binding it to the tree and anchored likewise by spikes rammed through the dried bark. Its horned head was laid low, but yellow eyes looked at the man in black, before moving to gaze at the newcomers.

Like an animal that knew it was going to die.

The Marines heard the sound of shuffling feet. They turned and saw behind them the many villagers. Some with mouths still stained from the steaks, blood red for those who liked theirs rare. Others bringing their Walkmans and wearing their headphones, beating their heads to the inaudible tune of musics. A few cradling their volumes of Laserdiscs.

“Now, wait a second. What the hell is going on here?” asked Captain Coffee. Not that he had any problems with Second Lifers stringing a Baldrick up, hell by all means they had every right to do that and more. But still, it didn't hurt to know. Knowing was half the battle, like they say.

“The daemon tried to eat our children,” proclaimed one of the villagers.

“Okay,” Coffee shrugged. “So what're you gonna do?”

“That's for me to decide,” answered the man in black. All of a sudden, he was beside Captain Coffee, looking at the Marine officer with his masked face, eyes obscured by sunglasses.

“And just who might you be?” Coffee looked back right at the guy's face, staring back with his own skull-masked facial features. For a moment, all they did was stare at each other, eye to eye, opaque gas mask lenses looking into reflectorized sunglasses. Neither of them blinked. And even if one of them did, nobody couldn't tell. It was that intense.

“I'm an... interrogator,” the man in black relented. Then he paused, as though deciding something. “You can call me Nitram.”

“You mean Martin,” Coffee eyed the man suspiciously. What kind of codename was 'Nitram' anyway?

The spook just looked at him. He cocked his head, almost bird-like. “Nitram.”

“Okay, okay.” Whatever. Coffee cursed mentally. Just his luck to run into an Agency spook. What the hell was he doing here? “So, what's your story?”

“I'm an expert. A technician. A problem solver. An extractor of information.” Nitram said, all slyly under his gas mask and sunglasses. “I want to ask the daemon a few questions. Will you help me ask the daemon a few questions?”

“What's in it for us?” Coffee raised an eyebrow. He wasn't doing anything for nothing. This wasn't his mission, and unless the guy was gonna pay him with his expensive suit or fancy loafers, well he could get fucked.

“The satisfaction of having served your country, and having done a job well done?” Nitram replied. Before Coffee could laugh, he continued: “And my not-telling anyone of the mission particulars of your... enhanced hearts and minds operations, Captain Herman Kauffner service number six-four-three-three-one-zero-point-five-oh-and a half from Athens, Arkansas?”

Shit.

“Alright, what do you need?” Coffee sighed. This was going to be a long day.

“A towel, a bucket of water, and one of your pick-a-nick tables, pretty please.” Nitram replied. Though his mouth was obscured by his respirator, Coffee was sure the smug spook bastard was grinning under his damn gas mask. Nitram cocked his head again and looked at Coffee. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Coffee cursed under his gas mask. They gathered the materials, placed the table where the spook wanted it, and got the other things readied. Then they unshackled the Baldrick and with the entire squad taking hold of it, tried to haul it over to the table. The daemon resisted. Struggled and squirmed with what little life it had left in it. It didn't want to die. It wanted to break free, wanted to run, to escape, and with every last bit of strength it tried to pry itself away from the Marines. It cried out a hoarse and inarticulate cry of desperate defiance.

The sledgehammer striking the back of its skull made it shut up. It collapsed, body becoming limp and weak. It fell to its knees. With one mighty heave, the Marines hauled its motionless form and brought it on the picnic table.

With a rag, Coffee wiped the greenish bloodstains off his hammer.

“Never start with the head, the victim gets all fuzzy.” Nitram admonished him calmly. He produced a briefcase seemingly out of nowhere. He opened it and brought out a pair of blue gloves and wore them. The second item he brought was a tiny tape recorder. He clipped it on his breast pocket, turned it on and spoke. “Subject has been restrained to table. Proceeding to incline the table, to angle subject's head below body level.”

He nodded and motioned to the Marines. They shackled the daemon to the table and by using the tree as support, they brought the foot of the makeshift bed up, elevating its feet while lowering its head.

“Water, please?” Nitram asked politely. Private Phant offered him a canteen. He took a sip and gave the canteen back. He thanked Phant. “I meant the bucket.”

“Oh.” Phant gave him the bucket. Nitram also took the rag Coffee used to wipe his hammer. He placed the rag on the daemon's face, and then poured the water.

“Administering first dose,” Nitram said to himself. The water soaked the rag and then flowed into the Baldrick's windpipe whenever it tried to breathe. It gagged and choked on the fluid. Its back spasmed, arching its back, though the chains restrained it. Nitram stopped. The Baldrick began coughing violently. “Subject is awake and conscious. Proceeding with the interrogation.”

He ripped the rag off the daemon's face. The daemon squinted its eyes as it got a clear look of its torturer's face. Nitram waved at it.

“Nice of you to join us.” Nitram smiled. Not that it was visible, his face being under a respirator and a pair of sunglasses. But still, he sure sounded like he was smiling.

“What – what do you want?!” the daemon sputtered, still coughing water out its airway.

“I have some questions. Would you mind answering them?” Nitram looked away from the daemon, turning to Coffee and the other spectating Marines. “Captain, viewer discretion is highly recommended due to the subject matter of my interrogation. Way above your pay grade, need to know basis, that stuff. So, I'd like some alone time with my friend.”

Coffee shrugged. He'd done quite a few snatch and grabs before for Agency spooks. Even helped them do their procedures afterwards. Some of them were quite forthcoming and open, okay with him and his Marines helping out with the tools and lending a hand with the irrigation. But others were different and just couldn't do their thing when people were around watching, they needed privacy to do their work, preferring to get up close and personal with their subjects. Nitram must've been one of the latter.

The Marines left Nitram to do his work. Now alone with his subject, he turned back to the Baldrick. He pulled something out of his coat pocket. A picture of a man, but not just any man. He showed it to the daemon, made sure it had a nice look at it.

“The human in the picture was a King of many men in his past life. He died many years ago. Have you seen this man in Hell?” Nitram asked, patiently like a school teacher waiting for a particularly slow student to answer a question.

“No,” the daemon answered.

“Wrong answer.” Nitram tutted as he replaced the rag over the daemon's face and poured some more water. He looked at his watch, an Omega, and timed himself carefully while speaking to his tape recorder's microphone. “Administering second dose.”

At first he poured just a little, and watched the Baldrick hold its breath. He waited, and when the Baldrick exhaled, he started pouring more, so that when it inhaled the water was sure to go in too. Again the daemon gagged and choked and spasmed. Its body became rigid. The previous dip was just a wake up call, but this one was a full forty second application. With one hand pouring the water, Nitram used his other hand to close the mouth of the daemon's rag-covered face. Water wasn't free, after all, so he dammed the runoff. Prevented it from spilling out of the Baldrick's mouth.

Drowning was very much like dying, and the Baldrick's forty seconds of dying were over. Nitram waited for it to catch its breath. The dying could continue later. Now he showed it another photograph, a different one.

“How about this one? Have you seen him?”

The daemon coughed and gasped for breath. Eventually, it spoke. “N-no... please...”

“You're a gatekeeper. You were the ones who welcomed men to the afterlife. Are you certain?”

“Please stop...”

“Your choice.” Nitram shrugged and continued.

The sessions went on. The manual specified that they were allowed only six separate 40-second "applications" of liquid in each two-hour session. But that was for humans. For people. Daemons weren't people. So the manual could allow for some creative interpretation.

The daemon vomited, water and whatever its had for its last meal came pouring out of its mouth. Nitram placed his hand over its mouth and tried to make it inhale its own puke. The Baldrick coughed, its body convulsing as it did so. It tried to breathe, but each gasp of breath brought not only water but also vomitus into its lungs.

It tried to bite Nitram's hand. The sharp teeth cut through the blue latex of his gloves.

“Motherfuck!” the spook cursed. He picked up the sledgehammer Captain Coffee had left behind and used it to smash the Baldrick's teeth in. It wasn't a mighty swing, just a few clinical love taps, like a dentist in Hell. The daemon was still choking on its own vomit, trying to puke out the water while at the same time trying to breathe in air. It sucked in mouthfulls of air, mouthfulls of puke, and its own teeth too – which made it choke some more. Nitram broke more of the daemon's teeth, before forcing he sledgehammer into its mouth. “That's right! Eat it! Eat it! Come on, you worthless retarded cocksucking hippocrabfucker! Eat it!”

He laughed.

He fucking laughed.

Time's up. He stopped and removed the rag off the daemon's face, and the sledgehammer from its mouth. The Baldrick gurgled and finally heaved out all the liquids it had swallowed.

“I... did...” the Baldrick uttered.

“What?” Nitram bent down and placed his ear near the daemon's mouth. “Come again?”

“I did...” the daemon confessed. “I f-f-fucked... a hippocrab...”

“Hah!” Nitram snickered and slapped his thigh. “I knew it! Concession accepted, bitch!”

“Now please... let me go...”

“No, no, no. We'll continue.” Nitram held the two photographs in front of the daemon, one for each of its eyes. “Until you tell me where these men are.”

“I don't know!” the Baldrick mewled. Feebly, like a frightened tree. “Please! I know nothing!”

“Too bad.” Nitram continued. This time he didn't bother to place the rag on the daemon's face. He just poured some more water right into the Baldrick's nose and mouth. The Baldrick tried holding its breath, but in its position with its upper body slanting downwards, the law of gravity made its abdominal organs move downwards, pushing on its daemonic diaphragm. It couldn't hold its breath as long as it could in sitting or standing position. But still, the daemon held its breath and its reddish devil-face gradually turned a shade of blue. Nitram tutted. “Oh no you don't!”

He brought his foot down hard on the Baldrick's abdomen. Imagine a boot stamping on a daemon's diaphragm. Forever.

Nitram's steel-toed boot connected with the daemonic flesh. In its weakened state, the Baldrick easily got the wind knocked out of it. Nitram stomped again, and the second the steel-toed footware met he Mephistophlebitic meat, something happened. There was a spark of light and a jolt of electricity ran up Nitram's leg, coursing up his foot, making its way through his thigh, and coruscating into his groin. This time, it was his turn to convulse, to spasm, to dance an electroconvulsive jig as the Baldrick's natural bioelectric tendencies made his jaws clench along with the various musculatures of his body and sphincters of his orifices. After half a minute, the current stopped and Nitram staggered backwards.

He nearly collapsed, but steadied himself by using the sledgehammer as a cane. Drool leaked out from under his respirator. He uttered a mispronounced curse with his numbed jaw muscles. “Fuckle!”

It was the daemon's turn to laugh. It barely managed a weak giggle.

Nitram smashed its nose in with the sledgehammer.

“Fuck!” the shocked spook shouted, finally regaining proper human speech with his mouth organs. He ambled with a drunken gait towards the Marines, who were watching from a distance. He waved at them to come to him.“Captain! Kauffner!”

“What's the matter?” Coffee turned to face him, expressionless under his gas mask. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Fuckle you!” Nitram did a doubletake. He wiped the saliva that was leaking under his chin. His facial features were still tingling.

“What?” Coffee snickered.

“I said fuck you!” he shouted back.

“Oh.” Coffee thought he sounded funny. Still, if it was a proposition, he didn't mind. As long as the spook kept his mask and sunglasses on, and his pants off. Sure, why not? “Okay.”

“Shut up and get me a can of gas!” Nitram shouted, again.

“Why?” Coffee asked impassively. “If you ran out of water, there's a whole lot of gunk from the tar pits. Use that.”

“Give me the fucking gas! Because I'm going to introduce the fucker to some real Christian sharing and caring.” Nitram shrieked and stamped his feet to capitalize his point.

“Which means...?” Coffee raised an eyebrow. Something was telling him that this particular spook had gone a little spooky in the head. Jinkies.

"Lighting it up like a Christmas Tree in Times Square, that's what I'm going to do." Nitram was flailing his arms now, swinging his sledgehammer around. “I'm going to set that fucking Baldrick on fire! Gonna have a barbecue! Don't you hillbillies like barbecues?!”

“Yeah, we do.” Coffee scowled under his gas mask. “But I'm not giving you my gasoline.”

“Why?!” Nitram grabbed him by the collar. “Don't tell me you're getting soft on me, you little white trash shit! What're you gonna do next? Vote Democrat? Fuck off and get me the fucking gas and some flares!”

“Look, mac.” Coffee shoved him off and stuck a finger on his chest. “I ain't got a problem with you celebrating Christmas. Except we have a few problems with that.”

“Like what?”

“One. It ain't December.”

“Oh please!” Nitram rolled his eyes under his sunglasses.

“Two. The gasoline is rationed. I can't be wasting precious fuel for a barbecue that'll taste like shit.” Coffee was raising two fingers now, just to make sure the spook could keep up.

“Your face is shit.” Nitram crossed his arms.

“Your mother didn't seem to mind that,” Coffee retorted. “Last night. In her bed. When she shat on my dick. While I fucked her up her -”

“Don't talk about my mother that way you piece of crap!” Nitram tried to swing the slegehammer into Coffee's shit-face, but his hands were wet and the hammer just slid off his hands and flew off somewhere else. The Marines all snapped to attention and regarded Nitram with the cold goggle-eyes of their gas masks. They had deactivated the safeties of their .50 caliber M4s. Nitram realized he just did a major boo-boo. His electrocuted foot started spasming. “Fuck! Fuckle!”

Coffee didn't mind this, and instead clapped an arm around Nitram's shoulder. The Marine Captain was actually huge, whilst the spook was actually rather diminutive in form.

“Look,” Coffee knew they got off on the wrong start. He tried to make amends. With his arm over Nitram's shoulder, he gave the tired spook a little massage. That would help with the post-electrification muscle cramps. Real soothing like. “I appreciate how patriotic you are for trying to start a Christmas bonfire in Hell. It appeals to me. A lot of these Second Lifers probably never had a Christmas for thousands of years. I mean, X-Mas, excuse me. But the realities of our tactical situation simply preclude us from using the petrol. The oil. Black Gold. Gasoline.”

Nitram stopped and reflexively adjusted his glasses.

“I see your point,” his response was in a neutral tone. Coffee still hadn't removed his arm from his shoulder. “Captain.”

“Good, good.” Coffee chuckled. “Now, there are alternate means with which we can pursue this situation.”

“We can use other holidays.” Nitram suggested. “Like...”

“The Fourth of July?” Private Phant piped in. “We've got some frags. Captain was saving them for his list, but since Chaplain Kast ate his own gun, I guess we can spare some.”

“No! No!” Corporal Zak followed suit as well. “How about Cinco de Mayo? Harvokeff is a Mexican't, so it can work!”

Harvokeff looked up from what he was doing and scratched his groin protector in confusion. “Que?”

“Right, right.” Phant nodded. “String the Baldrick up, make it a piñata!”

“I'm the commanding officer here. The two of you can shut up or fuck off, preferably both.” Coffee growled and glared at the two shits menacingly. Like good little jarheads, they followed their commands and fucked up immediately. “Right. Now our mission priority here is to establish relations with the Second Lifers and to win hearts and minds. And you want to kill the Baldrick in the most painful way imaginable. Our priorities ain't mutually exclusive, Mr. Nitram, sir.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“To bolster relations with the Second Lifers, to show them that America respects their freedoms, their beliefs, values and customs, that we care for them, and in the spirit of cultural sensitivity... I say we let the locals stone him to death.” Coffee grinned. As he was from Athens, Arkansas, his grin was an Athenian Grin.

“I like it.” Nitram approved. “Make it so.”

And so they did. They gathered the rest of the townspeople and formed a mob. Then they released the daemon. The Baldrick tried to get on its gnarled hooves, exhausted as it already was from the previous ordeal and having been wounded beforehand. Slowly it got up and upon seeing the crowd of humans making their way towards it,the Baldrick tried to scramble away.

The townsfolk descended on the daemon began stoning it. They hurled pieces of their shit huts, shitting bricks at it, pelting it with dried and hardened fecal matter. The softer ones broke up and crumbled into smaller pieces. The harder ones, the sturdy stuff made out of constipated turds, were as hard as rocks though, and their sudden impacts inflicted pain upon the daemon.

The Baldrick gnashed its teeth and tried to scream, but now the humans had surrounded it and where water had entered its mouth beforehand, now it was the excrements of humanity that threatened to choke its throat. It lashed out at them, it wounded some with its claws. But in retaliation, the men simply brought forth even bigger pieces, aggregate building blocks of craps to ruin its shit with. They dashed it against its face, ruining several more of its facial features.

It fell on his back. It moaned. Its eyes rolled up to the back of its head. It could only see so little, but what little it saw was of the sky – spinning and so bright, yet ringed by darkness as its vision faded ever so slowly. It felt as though it was no longer on the ground. It felt as though it was being carried up. Into the sky.

The angry mob dragged the Baldrick back kicking and screaming to the center of the courtyard. They threw its heavy form on to the cracked earth, under the shade of the dead tree's bone-bleached bark, its skeletal branches reaching out to the sky claw-thorned fingers. The townsfolk were now tying ropes to those same branches, preparing to hang the daemon by its engorged member.

It was scared.

The tribe elder came from the throng of dead men and women. In his hands he held a staff of metal. Like a chimney rod. He stood atop the daemon. He raised the chimney rod, bringing it up for all to see. The crowds started murmuring in a strangely rhythmic fashion. Likewise, they seemed to move as one, in tune with their chantings and encantations. The chimney rod was brought up high. Then the tribal elder rammed it down with all his strength.

Into the daemon's eye socket.

The chanting stopped, and the screaming started. The screaming of the daemon's own voice. Throat now wetted by its near drowning, whereas previously it could only make hoarse utterances, now it could scream filly with a sick and wet cry of pain and anguish. A high-pitched shriek of pain unlike any other. Like that of a chalkboard being scratched with switchblades, singing in tune to the squeals of slaughtered swine.

There would be no silence of the lambs.

As it wailed, the daemon continued on fighting for its life. Though the chimney rod had plunged into its eye socket, the thick bones of its skull had stopped the rod from piercing into its brain. So with its hand, the daemon gripped the rod with all its unholy might and struggled to pull it out. The screams of pain became grunts of effort as it tried to pry the rod off its ruined eye.

The village elder gave out a scream of his own, a shout, a cry for help. Others began helping him. They joined him and added their weight to the rod, together trying their best to drive the thing slowly but surely deeper into the daemon's skull.

But the daemon was so strong. With every last bit of life it had left in it, utterly refusing to die, never giving up for it was fighting for its own survival. The pain was excruciating, unlike any other, but the pain told it that it was still alive. As long as it continued to hurt, it continued to live.

But more villagers joined the elder in pushing the rod in. More and more, until a full dozen were driving the rod into the Baldrick's brain. The daemon gripped harder, tried to pull harder, but alas. The chimeny rod sank deeper and deeper, went lower and lower, until they could all hear it - humans and struggling daemon alike - the sickening sound of steel punching through bone. It was the last thing it heard. Then the Baldrick's arm slackened and fell, because the chimney rod was now in its brain.

The tribal elder gave a cry of victory, a shrill shriek that was both joyous and exhausted, yet exhilerated. He gave his fellow tribesmen high-fives and down-lows, thumped chests with them, whooped and clapped and jumped and danced. The other villagers joined. All of them.

Together, as one, they strung the daemon up the tree, upside down like some dead animal caught and displayed as a trophy – for that was exactly what the Baldrick was. Nothing more, nothing less.

In a feat of hospitality, and in recognition to the contributions of their guests, the villagers invited the Marines to join in. So they did, and Private Phant and Corporal Zak began taking pictures of the lynched daemon. With polaroids. Back in Iraq, Captain Coffee had instructed them to use polaroids when taking photos of sensitive materials instead of digi-cams, lest it leak into the internet and cause problems. That policy had served them well then. It would serve them well now too. So Phant and Zak posed with the suspended daemon, together with villagers who struck amusing poses, and when the polaroids spat out the developed films many of the Stone Age Second Lifers were amazed and astounded – though some were horrified, believing their very souls to have been stolen by the pictographs.

Meanwhile Private Last Class Sarevokerritch was using his accumulated knowledges to ingratiate himself with the locals, as per the hearts and minds policies. So he was exchanging cultural customs with the natives together with Harvokeff. They tied a rag around Harvokeff's eyes and gave him the sledgehammer, and with it Harvokeff fumbled around blindly while swinging it and trying to hit the daemon's hanging corpse with it. Whenever he did, Sarevokerritch threw pieces of expired candies out for the Second Lifers while explaining to them the nuances of Harvokeff's Mexican heritage. Nobody was listening to him, though.

“Hey, Harvokeff! How's that Cinco de Mayo going?” Phant laughed and snapped a polaroid photo of his ridiculously blindfolded comrade.

“Si! Buenos dias! Muchos gracias!” Harv swung the sledgehammer and hit the mark, connecting it with the daemon's dead face and cracking its skull. Harvokeff jumped excitedly whilst Sarevokerritch threw his remaining candies into the air for the villagers to catch.“Ay! Arriba arriba!”

Captain Coffee grinned under his gas mask. He loved seeing his men happy after a day's hard work and a job well done. The villagers too were having a blast of a time. Harvokeff had taken his blindfold off and now some local Second Lifer was wearing it and swinging the sledgehammer blindly, trying to beat the dead Baldrick to death with it. This was what hearts and minds was all about. It was beautiful. Mission accomplished.

Nitram left the scene.

“My job here is done,” the man in black said as he disappeared into the desert on his SUV. He rode with his windows down, so the wind could blow on his still immaculate suit. Elvis had left the building.

Meanwhile, Sargeant Strak watched on from the sidelines. He shook his head in disbelief and simply said to himself:

“What a bunch of fatties.”

[Pelranius]

I can only imagine the shenanigans that the soldiers from other nations with say, less developed traditions of human rights discourse, will be up to in Heaven and Hell.

[Instant Sunrise]

I was wondering when we would start to see the TSW equivalences of My Lai.

[The Vortex Empire]

This just keeps getting better and better!

[Oni Koneko Damien]

If TSW was like this, I would have eagerly read the whole thing.

[Junghalli]

If TSW was like this, I would have eagerly read the whole thing.

Seconded. This is great stuff.

[[R_H]]

Hilarious.

[Deebles]

DFU. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing...

[Shroom Man 777]

What on Earth is DFU? Diabetic foot ulcer?

[[R_H]]

What on Earth is DFU? Diabetic foot ulcer?

Doomvee Fuck(ed) Up?

[Ilya Muromets]

Here's a bunch of possible meanings.

But I'll quote one that should appeal to Shroomy's wretchedly twisted heart: Dead Fetus in Utero

[Bakustra]

A magnificent start to what is sure to be a picaresque novel of the highest caliber. I shall follow this with all the devotion of a ostrich!

[Shroom Man 777]

Here's a bunch of possible meanings.

But I'll quote one that should appeal to Shroomy's wretchedly twisted heart: Dead Fetus in Utero

They will go to Hell and be resurrected as soup for the daemons to eat.

I am tempted to have the MAREENS buy these dead second lifer fetuses and, in a cunning plan, try to sell them to the PLA regiments in Hell.

[Ilya Muromets]

I am tempted to have the MAREENS buy these dead second lifer fetuses and, in a cunning plan, try to sell them to the PLA regiments in Hell.

Nah, that joke's old and stupid.

You can do better than lame email hoaxers mang.

[Shroom Man 777]

Okay. Maybe they scratch that idea and go hunt down some dogs.

Except in Hell, their dogs are - like rhinolobsters and hippocrabs - also shrimpdogs. The body of a canine, but with a crustacean's head sprouting compound eyes and chitinous mandibles, with pedipalps to aid in mastication (though the shrimpdogs first vomit digestive fluids on the food they are tearing up with their faces). The meat will appeal to canine lovers AND seafood enthusiasts!

Yes.

[Mr. Coffee]

“To bolster relations with the Second Lifers, to show them that America respects their freedoms, their beliefs, values and customs, that we care for them, and in the spirit of cultural sensitivity... I say we let the locals stone him to death.” Coffee grinned. As he was from Athens, Arkansas, his grin was an Athenian Grin.

One, I love the back and forth these guys got. Great stuff. Two, I am not from motherfucking Arkansas, change that shit. I am a Texan via Alabama, you take that Arkansas shit and shove it directly up your tiny, puckered Filipino ass, Shroomy. I'd rather you say my character was from Mississippi than Arkansas...

Also, this shit is fucking hilarious, write more of it. Now.

[Shroom Man 777]

Okay. Alabama is also a redneck state and it has an Athens. No problem.

[Deebles]

What on Earth is DFU? Diabetic foot ulcer?

Doomvee Fuck(ed) Up?

Deeply Fucked Up - but as an acronym, it doesn't mean that this is a bad thing (often said of horror movies, for instance).

[Shroom Man 777]

Ah, I take it as a compliment. Objectives and goals met!