Behavior Report 44

Dearest Love,

The Unforgiveable Savage starts running as soon as he sees me. His American Jeeps and trucks and tanks also shift into faster gears to keep up. Dust plumes into the air, sending clouds through the forest as if the Krauts start a rolling fire that consumes everything in its wake.

“Frank!” Earl yells. “Get to the Jeep!”

I look to Earl and then back to the charging Krauts.

My Love, I have time to run to Earl and zoom away.

But I don’t run.

I can’t.

Several of the boys stand around Earl and call for me. They don’t know of my decision.

Lieutenant Talbott appears by my side with his Thompson machine gun ready. “You know, there’s a fine line between courage and stupidity.”

“There is?”

“The unfortunate thing is, that you don’t realize what it is until it’s too late,” he says while pulling the bolt on his gun. “However, in this case, when you’re one person facing an entire division, it’s pretty easy to know.”

“I’m not running,” I say. “No more.”

“How are you going to stop an entire division with a sword and a few ghosts?”

“I’m not.” I raise the sword above my head with the blade pointing toward the bridge. “I’m going to prevent those Krauts from ever leaving this forest.” I throw the sword down with every bit of strength and fury that gathered over the months of fear and running.

But something wrong happens.

Instead of the blade cutting through, it bounces off the stone.

“What?” I say. “What’s happening?” I raise the sword again and thrust it down with the same result. The blade will not cut into the stone. “No, no, no!” I swing the sword like an ax and the only result is chinks in the blade’s edge.

The Krauts continue to move closer. Their engines roar like awful monsters. The tank tracks squeal like sinister demons. Dust continues to plume about them.

I swing and stab and swing again hoping for the sword to dig into the stone. Frustration envelopes me. Every attempt fails at making any dent. I yell. I swing again. I curse. I continue with failure after failure until there is one swing that subtly sticks. I lift the sword and find that the stone is cut and has glowing edges. I look up to view the charging Krauts and discover that I’ve moved closer to the side of the bridge nearest the Cauchemar Forest.

“Wait a minute,” I say and take a step closer to the forest. I lift the sword again and plunge it down to feel the unmistakable stick of the sword cutting into the stone. The handle vibrates. I’m able to push it through. “Ha!” I yell. Then I begin to push the sword toward the railing as if I were pushing a heavy cart, leaning all my weight against the friction.

“Frank, you don’t have enough time!” Lieutenant Talbott hollers. “You’re either going to have to get ready to fight or get to Earl. You can’t cut the bridge down.”

The roar of the Krauts grows unbearably loud.

I yell, “I’m almost there.”

“But you have a whole other side to cut! Run!”

When I reach the edge, I remove the sword and swing it down on the railing to finish the cut. As soon as I cut through, I look up to gauge my remaining time, but the Krauts are within a few hundred feet. I can hear The Unforgiveable Savage screaming bloody murder as he charges toward me with his rifle and bayonet.

There’s not enough time.

My Love, my heart drops.

I exhale.

All the tanks and trucks and Jeeps barrel toward me like a tsunami coming to wash away the only remaining barrier that stands in their way.

The Unforgiveable Savage raises his rifle and aims it directly toward me.

“It’s been an honor serving with you,” I say to Lieutenant Talbott.

He doesn’t reply.

I turn and find myself back in our hallway staring at you and Junior in the kitchen against a sunny backdrop. The smells return. The warmth. The joy. I try to step forward to join you—

But a massive explosion sends several Cauchemar Forest trees to the ground. The entire column of Krauts abruptly stops. There are screams and gun shots hidden in the dust plume. Several trucks crash into the Jeeps within the confusion. Another explosion rocks the ground and within the clouds, a tank sails end over end into a tree.

Silence gathers and the clouds of dust fade. Flattened tanks and trucks reveal themselves as does a monster that looks like a pile of stones and stalagmites.

I smile and say, “Go get ‘em, boy.”

The monster lowers its head and charges back into the Kraut column. Its two front horns glide just above the dirt like skis. Then the monster careens into the Krauts and swipes left and right and left again, using its horns to crush Kraut soldiers, tear apart the Jeeps, and flatten the tanks. The Krauts attempt to fight back, but their rifles are no match for the monster’s armor. Bullets spark off its stone skin.

When it finishes one pass through the Krauts, the monster turns around and plows through again like a farmer clearing a field for seed. In two swipes, the monster clears off more than two thirds of the Kraut division. Whoever remains takes off running in every direction.

Another surprise jolts me to the ground. My bones pop. Pain shrieks from my back as it scrapes the stone. The Unforgiveable Savage lands on top of me with his knife in hand. He quickly sits himself upright and raises the knife above his head to plunge it into my heart. Bullets from Earl’s side of the bridge rip The Unforgiveable Savages shirt. His shoulders flinch left and then right from the bullets, but nothing happens.

There’s no blood.

He laughs.

“I am invincible, unstoppable,” he says through a sinister smile. He raises his knife again and says, “I am inevitable.”

Earl and the rest of the boys yell, “No!”

Pain pierces my chest. Searing. Unrelenting. The Unforgiveable Savage puts his entire weight upon the blade, inching it slowly, deeper, and deeper, until it hits the stone bridge under my back. He twists and turns the blade while smiling. His breath smells of rotting garbage and wet cigarettes.

“Finally,” he says. “I continue to serve you Lord. Bless me for a greater purpose.”

I try to fight back, but my hands have the strength of cooked spaghetti. I search his belt for a pistol hoping I can shoot him. All I find is his canteen.

Defeat takes hold.

Earl cannot save me.

The boys cannot save me.

I cannot save myself.

I’ve lost.

I was so close to fulfilling everything.

I was so close to coming home.

The Unforgiveable Savage stands up, using the knife as leverage, and then yanks the blade from my chest. He notches another mark into his boot.

My Love, I can feel blood pooling inside where the knife left my chest. It feels like when you take a sip of hot coffee or tea, and the burning liquid draws down your throat and into your stomach. The warmth crawls underneath my ribs to my heart and lungs. I struggle to breath.

‘This is it,’ I think. ‘This is the end.’

My hands and feet grow cold. I hate to say this, My Love, but as I lay there dying, I don’t think of God or Heaven or asking for forgiveness.

I just cry.

I cry because I failed my friends.

I cry because I was so close to fulfilling their promises.

I cry because I didn’t fulfill your promise to “Come back.”

I cry because I won’t see Junior grow up to be a man.

I cry because in that moment, I can’t remember the last time I held you.

Without you, my life holds no purpose. When I was younger, before meeting you, I knew that I was going to die young. I didn’t know how and that wasn’t the important part. I just knew that I would not live a full life. I could never see myself as a man in his forties, fifties, and sixties. But when I met you, that all changed. I still couldn’t see myself as an old man, but I knew I had a purpose to live to those years. You gave me the spark that ignited a life into meaning. No job or career or popularity amongst people drove my purpose. You provided me with the joy of loving someone beyond any possible description. You marked the corner piece of my life’s puzzle, and I could figure everything out from there.

Loving you and Junior was my purpose … no … still is my purpose.

Each heartbeat sends more blood to places it’s not meant to go.

I recall the last time I reached such a fate in the stone village. Earl saved me. He can’t now.

My time is ending, beat by beat.

The Unforgiveable Savage yells at Earl and begins to walk toward him.

I can’t let him kill my friend. I can’t.

My heartbeat grows weaker and weaker.

My thoughts begin to blend like a fog hovering over the ground. Nothing makes any sense. Somewhere, in a distant thought, something stands out. It’s metallic and gleans a reflection that shines through the clouds. I focus everything onto that image. My heart barely beats. The shape forms into a rounded thing with a cap. I can’t understand what it is until water pours out from the top and onto my chest.

‘Canteen! It’s The Unforgiveable Savage’s canteen!’

Hope drives me to continue pouring out the contents. He always kept water from the river in his canteen. The water enters the wound. I bring the canteen up to my lips and drink. The water has a metallic taste, but I don’t know if it’s from the canteen or my own blood. I swallow as much as I can and then pour the rest of the water on my wound. Dizzying blackness coats the edges of my vision. My heart taps slower and slower. My limbs tingle and grow colder.

‘How long?’ I think.

I feel my heart stop.

Gunfire and laughing echo about, but slowly starts to fade into silence.

Darkness overtakes my sight.

‘Death be swift.’

I breathe one last labored breath and wait.

The icy tendrils finish rooting through my limbs and reach across my chest. My body lay at rest, eternal rest, yet I am still present.

‘Where is death? My God,’ my thoughts continue. ‘My lack of faith has sent me to hell. I am bound to stay in this moment forever.’

I always wondered what hell would be. For me, it was dying and losing any control of my body but remaining conscious for an eternity. I envisioned an eternity of always knowing of my failures. I saw myself locked inside of wooden coffin buried in darkness and feeling the worms eat me.

‘What more can I possibly endure?’

I want to scream. I feel as if my blood has pooled all along my back. I feel pain, sharp pain, in my fingertip. The pain grows stronger until it’s unbearable. My head rolls to the side and a pinhole of light appears. The Unforgiveable Savage’s heel stands on my index finger. Electric pulses course up my arm like lightning bolts fanning out and searing my nerves. The pain moves up my forearm to my bicep and then finally to my chest where it centers around my heart. Then, suddenly, a massive shockwave bursts in my chest. Heat explodes like shrapnel spanning through my body.

My lungs gasp for their first breath.

Electricity gathers in each of my extremities and then darts to my chest in a synchronized pulse that jolts my heart awake. The energy collects in my blood. My heart pushes it out.

I haven’t failed!

I still have time!

Seconds pass and the flow of electricity from my extremities pulse to my heart several times over like a starter turning an engine. My heart reacts by pumping more and more life back into me.

Warmth returns.

Feeling returns.

The Unforgiveable Savage steps off my finger and towards Earl.

I sit up.

My chest and tattered shirt are covered in sticky blood, but the knife wound is gone. An uncontainable smile blooms brightly on my face.

I am still alive!

I have been given one more chance to do what’s right.

I turn just in time to see Earl and the boys charge The Unforgiveable Savage on the bridge. They shoot their rifles and swing their bayonets and punch to no avail. Bullets bounce off, knives break, and fists end in agony. Somehow, The Unforgiveable Savage can fight off the ghosts. He tosses them aside like dried leaves.

‘Nothing will stop him,’ I think.

Earl charges with his rifle in hand. He volleys a few blows, but each is met with a perfectly timed block. The Unforgiveable Savage connects a punch that stuns Earl. He pulls out his knife and prepares to take my friend’s life.

‘How is this possible? How can he drive off ghosts and bullets and anything else thrown at him?’

An other blast from the forest steals my attention for a second and the monster blows through the final set of vehicles and running Krauts.

‘The forest! The river! My sword!’

My Love, the memory of my sword failing against the stone bridge comes rushing back. Swing after swing failed until I passed the center point of the bridge and its power returned. Then I remember the shoreline where we met up with the Krauts for the first time. Bullets affected The Unforgiveable Savage then and I foolishly gave him his canteen. ‘As long as The Unforgiveable Savage remains on the Cauchemar Forest side of the bridge, he’ll be invincible. But if I can force him to the other side …”

“Stop,” I yell.

The Unforgiveable Savage turns. His eyebrows raise and his smile fades at the sight of me standing up and gathering my sword. I do my best to hide the dizziness. Earl gathers his own wits and shakes his head when he sees me.

“No. Not today. Not this time,” I say. “Your inevitability wasn’t what you thought. I am your inevitability. I will end you.”

I step forward.

The boys who were thrown to the ground sit up and watch.

Earl backs up to the end of the bridge.

The Unforgiveable Savage shakes his head and laughs quietly. He removes his helmet and tosses it aside.

Instantly, I charge him, hoping to push him back far enough to cross the center of the bridge. He does take a step or two back, but I don’t know if it’s far enough. I lower my shoulder to ram him. He meets my blow with a punch to my side. He swipes his knife toward my face and misses by mere centimeters. I return with a punch from my free hand that does little to his countenance.

‘Further,’ I think. ‘I have to drive him further.’

I swing my sword and he dodges. I swing back and he dodges again. Each swing sends him further and further back.

‘Only a few more feet …”

I swing and swing. The Unforgiveable Savage starts to laugh louder and louder with each miss.

‘He doesn’t know …’

Then, instead of swinging side to side, I raise the sword over my head and swipe down. The moment feels eternal as if a lifetime passes. The blade cuts silently through the air and misses my enemy, but when the blade hits the bridge, I receive a jolting shock.

My sword doesn’t cut the stone!

‘That’s it!’

Everything gathers all at once. The boys return to me like angry bees protecting their hive. Bob and Walt and Emil’s strength register into my arms and legs. Russell and Roland’s self-determination electrifies my brain to allow no other outcome to occur. Surplis’ baseball savvy plants my feet to prepare for a homerun. Troha’s calm allows me to embrace the strength of the others. Lafe and George’s leadership direct all the strengths to work as one to make the final blow. Quinten’s humor appears as a smile on my face because The Unforgiveable Savage does not know what will happen. And Lieutenant Talbott’s courage ensures that I follow through.

The Unforgiveable Savage lunges toward me right as I raise my sword. The blade plunges into his stomach and slides through until it breaches his back. Shock splays across his face. The boys direct me to immediately pull the sword. They tell me to spin around, gathering speed as I do so. I raise the blade and swipe with the power of an entire squad seeking revenge.

…

Don’t tell this Junior. My Love let’s just say that no amount of magical water can replace a missing head.

I scream.

Everything releases. The pain. The fear. Happiness.

I fall to my knees. 

The red clouds floating above the grasses along the shore finally dissipate. The muddy foxhole and endless rain wash away. Lieutenant Talbott’s final breaths reverse, leading only to the positive memories I have. The monsters and trees and caves of the Cauchemar Forest crawl away to hibernate in some unforgettable region of my memories. Stones from the mountain and castle tumble into a heap of dust.

I finally find closure for the loved ones I left behind.

I see Earl standing at the end of the bridge as soon as the dust settles in my mind. His doughy smile stretches from ear to massive ear.

“Let’s go home,” he says.