Behavior Report 23

Dearest Love,

I need to begin writing these letters down in a different way, like stories, which can be shared and passed along to others. I’m especially thinking of Bob and his promise.  

My last letter left off as Earl and I began our way out of the cave. We had no bearing or direction or any idea of where to go, except that we could only move one way because the monsters blocked the other. I stole quick glances at Earl as we walked to figure out how he was doing. Getting him to talk was a bit of a challenge at first, but then the dam broke, and he told me everything.

“Want to begin?” 

“Begin what?”

“Your story.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Where do you want me to start?”

“At the beginning. At the village.”

“There was gunfire nearby, but I couldn’t react. Four Krauts surrounded me. Kids almost. All had their guns pointing at me. They tied my hands behind my back, and we began to move while the gunfire was still going on elsewhere. I couldn’t run away or anything.”

“Did they talk?”

“From what I could figure out, they wanted to take me to a headquarters somewhere. They kept saying, “alter man,” which I think means, “old man.” My guess is that they wanted him to interrogate me, but I couldn’t figure out why. I kept thinking that if they were to take anyone to interrogate, why not Lieutenant Talbott or George or Lafe? But they decided on me.” He paused and then added, “Do you know what “schloss” means?”

“Schloss?”

“Yeah, schloss.”

 “Hmm, schloss.” I tried to think through my German studies from back in the States. Repeating the word over and over didn’t help bring about any memories. “Schloss. Schloss. Schloss. I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter. Those Krauts kids couldn’t speak a lick of English, so you’re already better than they. Those rotten little rats would only say “Gehen” when speaking to me or, worse, just hit me with their rifles when they wanted me to move.

“We walked all day and then camped at night. They built fires, so I knew we were in Kraut territory. A guard was always awake at night, but it wasn’t to guard against the enemy, it was to prevent me from escaping. There was one Kraut who was awful. I never slept whenever he was on watch. He liked to hit me with his rifle right when I was just about to fall asleep. Always to my head too. Painful stuff.”

“Geez,” I said, grimacing.

“But none of that really affected me. Yeah, it hurt, but the entire time I was thinking about you and the rest of the guys.” Earl stopped walking. The muzzle on his Schmeisser lowered along with his shoulders. He was falling into himself in a way I never experienced with him. In the service, Earl was always my rock, my foundation. “I had a lot of time to think,” he continued. “I couldn’t understand what they were saying most of the time. It was hard. I tried to translate their conversations, but I just,” he paused again, “I just didn’t know enough to keep up. I swore I knew enough Kraut but the speed at which they talked and the words, all the different words, it was too hard.”

“That’s okay,” I said.

“You can say that now, but I couldn’t help but feel horribly unprepared.”

“They’re sick monsters who speak a strange language that’s different from ours. They’re like mechanical monsters. Their voices chunk out strange words and they take pleasure in hurting people.” I thought of The Unforgiveable Savage and then said, “There is one who marks his boots as a way keep track of his kills.”

Earl turned to me and said, “I know who you’re talking about. We met up with him, briefly. I saw that his boots were covered in scratches, and I didn’t know why.”

“He marks his kills that way.”

“Awful.” Earl said. His Schmeisser and shoulders rose. “He was the one who first said, “Alter man.” I understood that conversation between that louse and the rest of the boys who took me prisoner.”

“That same louse chased me through the village while standing on top of a tank.”

“What? Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“How did that happen?” His interest seemed peaked, and it felt like he needed a distraction to take his mind off his story.

“Well, after everything that happened to us, I eventually walked around to see if anyone else was alive. I found Lieutenant Talbott, who was still alive and–”

“Talbott’s alive?” Earl yelled.

I struggled to respond.

“Oh.” Earl’s voice fell flat and low when he understood.

“I found him alive, but just barely. I tried my best to care for him, but his wound was too much.”

“That must have been hard.”

“It was.”

We walked in silence for a spell and then Earl added, “I thought Lieutenant Talbott was invincible.”

“Me too.”

“He talked to me one day when we were still back home, and he said something that has stuck with me ever since. He said, “Being a good soldier, one that people look up to, is just a person who can hide his fear better than everyone else.” And that changed the way I thought about things. Lieutenant Talbott was no different than you or me. He just hid his fear better.”

I thought about Earl and all the times he seemed like he had kept his head on straight. The smiles he showed me when times were tough were his way of hiding his fear. “Lieutenant Talbott was quite a man. But so are you, Earl. You’re just as strong as he was. You did all sorts of things that I was afraid to do.”

“That’s because I was afraid of what the Krauts would do to you.”

“What?”

“I only charged into those gunfights because I would rather take the bullet than you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my friend. Because I see the love you have for your wife. Because I hear how you talk about your son and what you hope he becomes.”

“But you have all of that too.”

“I do.”

All the pride that I felt from taking down the monster vanished. My Love, the lesson I learned from a few friendly words send me down a winding path into my conscience. Events replayed in my head of all the times that Earl did something for me, and I tried to think how I responded in kind. I could easily remember everything Earl did. I couldn’t recall something I did.

“Instead of going out of your way to take a bullet,” Earl continued, “you do other things, Frank. You’re too smart to charge toward an engaged enemy. You listen to people. You honestly listen to people. You let them talk and you listen. Everyone knows you listen too. You don’t wait for your turn and then speak. You hear what the person says and respond in kind. All the boys loved that about you. It’s a rare gift that is often missed in a room full of boys facing some of their greatest fears.”

I didn’t know what to say. Once again, Earl knocked the wind out of me.

“Enough of that,” Earl laughed. “How about I finish my story?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we walked. Could’ve been several days or weeks. I don’t know. I lost track because the nights all seemed to mix. Eventually, we came to a canyon with a river–”

“I know what you’re talking about. Was it several hundred feet deep?”

“Maybe? I was exhausted by then. I remember thinking that falling off the bridge would hurt. And once we crossed, everything seemed different. The grass was as tall as trees.”

“That was the start of the Cauchemar Forest.” I said in a flat matter of fact voice.

“The nightmare forest? Huh.” He thought for a moment and then said, “Fitting.”

“I’ve seen a lot of things that are the stuff of nightmares.”

“Yeah. We were attacked by some type of grizzly bear thing that kind of looked like a buffalo. I hope that makes sense.”

“Ah, yes, those.”

“You’ve seen one?”

“Several.”

“The Krauts shot at it, but nothing happened. They just made the thing madder.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. What could I do? I was tied up. One of those beasts took down one of the Krauts and the rest of us ran.”

“Did you all run in different directions?”

“No.” Earl paused and smiled. “Why would I? They had guns! What was I to do? It’s not like I could defend myself.”

I laughed.

He continued, “We all stopped and caught our breaths, eventually. One of the Krauts began to cut at the rope around my wrists, but the others stopped it. They all argued for some time, and I was sure that the forest had them all spooked. They ended up leaving me tied up and we started walking again.

“We came to an opening in the forest and saw a mountain. The Krauts started going crazy. One would rattle off a bunch of words and then say “alter man.” And then the other would rattle off a response and end with “alter man.” It was so fast that I couldn’t pick up on what they were talking about. The only thing I could think of was that an old man lives on that mountain.”

Earl and I rounded a corner in the cave and came upon a fork in our journey. The main underground river continued to our right within a larger sized cave while, to our left, a smaller, darker cave shot off. Heavy clouds of fog hovered within the entrance of the small cave like ominous warnings of what could be lingering within its walls. Earl at once aimed his Schmeisser toward the darkness. He began breathing heavily and took deliberate steps. His eyes were wide and unflinching like a rabbit watching a potential threat.

“Which direction do you think we should go?” I whispered.

“I don’t like the looks of this cave. Where’s the fog coming from?”

“The air from the river is probably warmer than the air from that cave or the other way around.”

Steel rattling against steel lightly echoed over the gentle sounds of the river. I traced the origin back to the Schmeisser shaking in Earl’s hands. Fear gripped him. I unsheathed my sword and aimed its beam into the fog. The dull concentration of light couldn’t cut through. I walked to the river and ripped a bundle of plants from the shore and held them next to my sword. A blinding beam of light gathered and shot forward from the blade, searing through the fog, and lighting the way better than any flashlight.

“That works,” Earl said.

The smaller cave was warm, its walls smooth. Reverberations from the river behind us slowly faded away until they disappeared completely when we walked around a bend. I didn’t miss the constant roar from the river. There were no bones or debris or any signs of past dangers. But even with all the evidence to suggest otherwise, our apprehension of the unknown was as thick as the fog. Sweat and humidity dripped from our faces. Every breath was taken as silently as possible. Our mouths remained open with the hope that it would improve our hearing. Each tentative step moved us forward but felt like we were doing more to endanger ourselves than find freedom. I stayed in front to guide the light while Earl covered the rear.

The darkness played with our minds, made us see things that were not there. I gripped my sword tightly and prepared for any surprise. Earl’s Schmeisser still rattled. Suddenly, a massive crack crashed through the cave like a bolt of electricity. We both screamed. Just when our hearts returned to beating, a low rumble rolled along the cave walls. Earl grabbed my shoulder with the weight of the world upon it. Short, wheezy breaths filled the cave once the rumble was gone. I turned to Earl to calm him, but he dropped to one knee and quickly began aiming his Schmeisser at anything that caught his eye. I happened to be one of the things that garnered the attention of the barrel when I spoke.

“Whoa, Earl!” I whispered. “Be careful.”

His eyes held an emptiness. The rumbling created a reaction that wasn’t his own. Training had taken over. I held up my hand to stop any further threat. Earl breathed through inconsistent sputters that sounded like a car running out of gas. I cautiously pushed aside his machine gun and then grabbed and hugged him. It was the only thing I could think of doing. He buried his face into my shoulder and sobbed.

“I’m not ready to die,” He said.

“You’re not going to die.”

Another loud bang jolted us. Earl jumped hard enough to lift us both off the ground. The sound rolled along the cave walls again, but something felt different after hearing the sound for a second time. All the distractions within the darkness and the presence of Fear clouded my rationality. The sound seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. My mind ran through the possible things to make the noise. Was it a tank? A mortar? A grenade? None of them seemed to fit.

While still holding Earl, I turned our bodies so that I could face the direction of the sound. Another jolt exploded and rumbled through the cave. As it happened, I saw the unmistakable flash of lightning that lit a small circle in the distance. Everything came together in my head. The light. The sound. The circle.

“Earl,” I said.

He ignored me and continued to cry.

“Earl,” I said, louder.

I pushed him away from me.

“Look!”

I turned him around. Just as I did, another flash of light lit the circle. Thunder rumbled.

“We found a way out!”