SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set Page 2

Sweet Christ!

  "You ready for a nap, Daley?" Nick sounded almost cheerful.

  “I’m pretty jittery.”

  Nick snorted and slapped the branch with his palm. "You're a master of understatement," he said. "Try to get some rest anyway. It's my watch."

  Daley scooted near to the trunk and pressed his chest against the rough bark as if embracing a woman.

  "What kind of tree is this?" he asked, tracing the sharp whorls of bark with his fingers.

  “Vietnamese oak. How the fuck should I know?"

  Daley smiled. He felt Nick's arm hold him steady. His brother's fingers were wintry. ”You must be cold.

  I'm sweating and your hands are freezing."

  "Fear, little brother. It drains all the warmth. Haven't you ever noticed?"

  Daley silently agreed, but what good did it do to talk about it? It only caused the fear to become more urgent.

  Nick's knee popped again. A bird jeered and flew through pitch blackness with a flutter.

  Suddenly a twig snapped at the bottom of the tree. Daley's eyes snapped open. His heart pounded fiercely and he struggled for breath.

  "You hear that?" he asked in a low whisper.

  "Some animal," Nick reassured him. "Get some sleep while you can."

  Daley's eyes closed and his heart slowed until it no lower thumped against his rib cage. Sleep, sure, sleep.

  But how? He had nightmares of falling, his body riddled with bullet holes.

  All the odds were against their survival. Big shot recon snipers cut off from safety. One M-14 with a broken breach. Nick had buried it. One M-14 lost in the murky depths of a creek while crossing. He would never live it down if they ever got back to the platoon. He could have told them he would fuck things up.

  Where the sergeant saw potential, Daley only saw incompetence. Losing his weapon proved it.

  “I’m gonna die,” he breathed, but Nick did not hear him. The frightened birds that nested all around the brothers thought the animal in their midst had only breathed a weary sigh.

  #

  Daley woke groggily, clawing his way out of his nightmare to stare blankly at the trunk of the tree right before his eyes.

  "Smell 'em?" Nick whispered harshly.

  Smell what? Daley wondered. Then his mind slipped into place and he remembered where he was.

  The Cong! You could always smell them before you could see them or hear their approach. They stank of wet stagnant rice paddies and they stank of human excrement. Their own shit betrayed their presence.

  Daley touched his brother to let him know that he knew the enemy was close. He strained to hear a sound, but be could not tell where they were. The aroma was still faint so he knew they were not at the base of the tree. Please Jesus save us, he prayed.

  "Stay." Nick said the word so softly it might have been a puff of wind passing Daley's ear. He wanted to scream, No! Don't go down there! Don't let me die alone! But Nick already was shimmying expertly down the tree, swinging from limb to limb as he lowered himself to the ground. Daley watched his brother becoming a dark shape going down, down, descending silently to death.

  Daley decided not to do as Nick had commanded. He could not sit in the branches while his brother stalked the enemy. There might be too many of them. It was probably a night patrol from a nearby tunnel.

  The stink grew stronger. The enemy was closer, not more than twenty yards north of their tree. Daley could hear them, the footfalls barely disturbing the thick vegetation of the forest floor.

  He looked for Nick, but his brother had vanished. Oh for godssake, Nick, this is it. This is how it ends. And I don't even have a goddamn gun.

  Daley moved like a wraith down the tree trunk and concentrated on the darkness in the direction of the oncoming sounds. Where was Nick? Would he use the .45?

  Daley braced himself for anything. Gunfire. Capture. Quick painful death from behind. He felt his bowels loosen and tensed his buttocks. A sweet sensation of relief was followed by the realization that he had wet himself. Shame suffused him, but couldn't overcome the fear. He kept perfectly still, not breathing.

  An odd gurgling sound came from the direction of the Cong. Bushes rustled, followed by a thin, throaty rattle, then silence.

  Suddenly Daley was running without knowing why or what he would do when he burst through the matted vines that separated him from what he feared on the other side. He flailed through waist-high bushes, tearing away the branches that barred his path. His foot caught beneath a body on the ground and he went down with a grunt. He rolled off the corpse, jumped to his feet, and heard Nick whisper close to his ear, "I told you to stay!"

  Daley jerked his head, looking around for more Vietnamese. "Where are they?" he asked. "Jesus, Nick, I thought..."

  "Shhh!" Nick put a finger to Daley's lips. They both turned in unison at the approaching footsteps.

  Suddenly Nick pushed Daley behind a clump of broad slick leaves. Daley squatted, his gaze riveted momentarily on the dead man's eyes that stared sightlessly up to the treetops. Daley's attention went back to his brother, who stood flush against a tree. In the shadows it looked as if something was suspended from his right hand. A rope? A piece of string? What the hell does he have? Where was the .45? Daley wondered.

  A short, skeletal Viet Cong slipped into the bare spot where the dead man lay. He stepped past the tree where Nick waited. As Daley's eyes rounded with terror, Nick moved behind the soldier, wrapped his hands around the man's throat, and tightened the eighteen-inch wire of a garrote.

  The Vietnamese dropped his rifle and grabbed at his throat, the fingers clawing at the strangling wire that was cutting off his wind. Nick jerked the garrote more fiercely and the man's feet left the ground, his full weight against Nick's chest. Nick held him, pulling the wire tighter and tighter. The wire sank deeper into the tender flesh as blood began to gush from the wound. The gurgling sounded again.

  Nick heaved backward with all his might, and while Daley watched in both horror and fascination, the man's head was severed from his struggling body, blood spurting after the head in a high, wide arc.

  Daley turned and retched. He heard the head hit the ground and roll. Then there was a heavier crash as the body dropped to earth, blood still gouting from the neck.

  "Let's go," Nick said softly. He touched Daley's shoulder with a hand that dripped warm blood. "There's one more. He took off. He'll bring the whole goddamn North Vietnamese army down on us."

  Daley could not vomit. Nothing would come up. They had been eating powdered eggs and C-ration Spam for days. It sat in his rolling stomach like a malignant tumor, but it would not come up. He had killed his share of the enemy. He had seen men killed. Blood and torn flesh were typical scenes in war. But decapitation was too gruesome. It was one atrocity he had not witnessed in Vietnam.

  Nick was striking off through the jungle. He seemed to know instinctively where the other Vietnamese had gone. Daley rushed to catch his brother. Someone had told him…maybe it was the battle-weary sergeant…fear was the healthiest emotion a soldier could feel. Fear caused you to fight longer, and more fiercely. But Daley had pissed himself and he had tried to vomit up his guts. What kind of a real soldier was he? And what kind was Nick?

  They were going deeper into the forest. Nick slogged ahead, the garrote swinging from his hand like a yo-yo while Daley followed. He could see the entrance of a cave outlined in the darkness. He could not tell if it was a cave that nature had created or if it was mad-made--bored into the hillside by the Cong. As they neared the opening Daley smelled the scent of the enemy once again, the scent of death riding on the breeze.

  Nick did not hesitate for a second. He boldly entered the tunnel. Daley hung back, swallowed, wiped a line of perspiration from his upper lip, then stepped inside.

  He was momentarily blinded. He could not see his hand, his brother, or the walls on either side of him.

  ''Nick?" Daley whispered.

  There was a sharp war cry. The dark boomed with the sounds
of human battle. Vietnamese curses tore through the air.

  Daley waited, shivering with fear. "Nick!" he called more loudly.

  The chilling gurgle of a man being strangled bounced off the damp walls of the cave.

  Daley could not wait any longer. The man being strangled could not be Nick. It could not be! If It was, then he had to save his brother, save him somehow…

  Daley stumbled forward, his hands outstretched to feel for the shape of a man. Something hot splashed over him and he knew it was blood.

  He screamed.

  A cigarette lighter flicked on. Daley stopped in mid-stride, his mouth still open from the scream that was fading away with tinny echoes to the back of the cave. Nick stood over the corpse of the last Vietnamese, the garrote dangling from one hand. He looked mad in the tuckering flame. He was covered with blood. Rubies of it nestled in his fine blond hair. Streaks of it ran down both cheeks.

  The front of his uniform was darkly soaked, and at his feet the severed neck of a black-suited Viet Cong continued to pump rivers of red over his boots. I'm right here. little brother." Nick's voice was calm. His stained lips curved into a gentle smile. He looked like a grim circus clown, chalk-white patches of skin and lipstick-smeared lips. "You don't have to be afraid anymore, Daley, I'll always take care of you."

  Daley could not help himself. He collapsed against the damp cave wall and began to sob. The cigarette lighter flame hissed and threw giant, bobbing shadows behind the two soldiers. They stood that way for a long time: one brother weeping, one brother smiling and holding his light up high against the darkness.

  Chapter 3

  THE TROPICAL SUN was aflame. The temperature and humidity were both in the nineties, making any physical activity a laborious task. Vietnam was the armpit of the world, and the vast armies sweeping across its interior were merely parasites looking for a more comfortable host.

  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.