Behavior Report 30

Dearest Love,

The next morning started with a “Bang.” Place yourself in my shoes where I found a comfortable flat spot in the tank and was dreaming splendid dreams. I can’t remember any of them, but I believe I was working in our garden or some other peaceful task when suddenly, a massive explosion struck! Before I could realize what happened, my clothes changed into my uniform, and I hit the dirt for protection. Several more “Bangs” burst. I crawled along the grass in search of a trench or foxhole, but it was our backyard, there was nowhere to hide. I looked at the house and somehow my vision went through the walls, and I could see you and Junior hiding under the table and screaming.

“Bang!”

You both vaporized within an orange burst.

“Bang!”

I screamed.

“Bang!”

I sat up, awake, surrounded by the tank. My heart pounded. I couldn’t catch my breath.  

“We’re awake!” Earl yelled. “We’re awake.”

Earl’s voice returned me to reality. I blinked and the smoke from the explosion that took you and Junior from me disappeared. My brain understood it was all a dream, but the rest of my body still shook. 

Rosalie smiled down from the hatch, stone in hand. She struck the tank one more time.

“Bang!”

She barely tapped the tank, but the sound reverberated through all the steel and congealed into one loud concussive “Bang.”

“Thank you,” Earl said, wearily. “Or mersee or how do you say, “Thank you” in French.”

I simply waved my hand as if to shoo Rosalie away. She giggled again and disappeared from the hatch.

Earl and I slept in one tank while Rosalie and her uncle slept in the other. We felt better that way, to give Rosalie her private space, but not only that, there wasn’t room in one of the tanks for four people to lay down. Earl and I stretched and took stock of our aches and pains.

Rubbing his face, Earl said, “Well, that was quite the wake-up call.”

I opened my pack and started to dig through in search of anything left we could eat.

“Who’s left on our list?” Earl said. “I feel like we checked off several of them yesterday.”

“Well, let me think.” I continued to dig through the pack. “Troha has a silk scarf and Lugar. Bob has a gauntlet for his stories. You found the satchel for Roland for his new job.”

“You found that pen for Russel.”

“Yes. I wish we could find more for him. More pens or maybe paper that we can send to the newsroom to prove that Russel faced greater adversity than the rest of his coworkers. We found ladies undergarments for Quint and the first thing we got was that bag of gold coins for George.” I stopped digging when I found some crackers. “All that leaves is Lafe and his tin of Kraut soil, wood for a bat for Surplis, a marriage proposal for Emil, a Kraut flag for Walt, and raising Lieutenant Talbott’s flag in victory.”

Earl laughed. “Is that it?”

I gave Earl one of the crackers and a swig of my canteen to wash it down. The water straightened our backs and fixed the cricks left in our muscles from sleeping in a tank. When we crawled, we found that Rosalie’s uncle wasn’t waiting for us and was already a few thousand feet down the dirt path. He looked like a spec amongst the massive trees. Rosalie was somewhere in between, waiting for us and keeping an eye on her uncle. We ran to catch up, said, “Good morning,” and received no response from the old man.

The morning was bright and cheerful with dew blanketing everything. The crickets and birds were back to their songs and the forest seemed refreshed from a cool night’s rest. When it was apparent that no conversation was going to be held by Rosalie or her uncle, we turned back to our own.

“Marriage proposal,” Earl said. “Any ideas on how we’re going to do that?”

“Think back to your own.”

“I bought a ring and took Arlene out to dinner.”

I laughed and said, “Well, we’ll have to be a little more creative than that.”

“The baseball bat will be easy. Just gotta find a sliver of wood in this for—”

Rosalie turned and said, “We go … to shah-tow… today. Mon couson … live … there.” She pointed toward the mountain. “Ah proximeetay day lah montangnay.”

“Sounded like she said her cousin lives near the mountain,” Earl said.

“Yeah, that’s what I got too.” I turned to Rosalie and said, “Many families at montangnay? Do you have a lot of family there?”

“Mon couson … His house. More … personnes … prisoneer … in la mountangnay.”

“Prisoners,” I said.

“In the mountain,” Earl added.

“Wait, I think I understand. We’re going to her cousin’s house to regroup or maybe gain strength with some additional people to free the prisoners in the mountain,” I said. “Maybe they have some weapons or more people. Maybe they’ll know where the prisoners are, and we will just help them.”

Earl nodded and then said to Rosalie, “Do you know where the prisoners are in the mountain?” He stressed the words “where” and “prisoners” and “mountain.”

“Dawn lay shah-tow.”

“The chateau? I’m confused. The prisoners are at her cousin’s house?” I said to Earl.

“No. I think chateau can mean multiple things. The Krauts who took me kept referring to the place on the mountain as “Schloss,” which I believe means castle.”

“I was hoping for a small cabin in the woods.”

“We can always hope.” Earl thought for a moment and then added, “You know what? This is all starting to add up. The Krauts that took me kept referring to the Alter Man. Between them and what Rosalie’s saying, I’m willing to bet that the prisoners are being held in the chateau or castle by the Alter Man.”

“Wee,” Rosalie said. “Alter man … take … prisoneer. Alter man … kill … mah fameel.”

Her words ripped through my soul. The Alter Man was the direct cause of the fiery passion in her eyes and the indifference upon her lips. I wondered too if the Alter Man took away Rosalie’s uncle’s happiness. “I’m sorry,” I said, but I knew that it wouldn’t help. My words were worthless to her. Two words could never bring back loved ones.

Earl said, “We will find the Alter Man and kill him.” I’m not certain that Rosalie understood, but I certainly did. Our plans had changed. Earl was thinking with his heart. All the pain from his countless deaths gathered into a directive. I needn’t ask why he made the choice, I simply had to look into his eyes to know the answer.

Rosalie smiled and turned to catch up with her uncle. As soon as she was out of earshot, Earl leaned in and said, “Those bastards killed our squad. They took me hostage. They beat me and left me to fight against a monster.” He rubbed his face and then continued. “All of that is enough to want to find this Alter Man. But then to also see Rosalie and her uncle’s pain because of the Alter Man … I have never felt more hate and anger toward anyone in my life.”

“As much as I understand, I also think that we need to step back. We need to keep our heads on straight and can’t go running into something that we know nothing about.”

“What more do we need to know? We can point to all our woes because of this vile person.”

“But we don’t know the size of his castle. We don’t know the size of his army. We don’t even know his real name.”

“I’ve been thinking. The Krauts mentioned his name a few times, something like Hans Leakerfrau or Has Leakerfrau or something like that.”

“It doesn’t matter what his name is. As much as I want to help Rosalie and avenge our brothers’ death, I would rather we make it home. Getting into an unnecessary fight with someone is a risk we don’t need to take. We can help them free those prisoners, but then we should leave. We should find the way out of this forest.” I began to feel an emptiness inside me, a burning disappointment because I could never return a living person back to their loved ones left behind. “We have too much of a responsibility to bring back the promises, Earl. I hope you can see this.”

After what felt like an eternity, Earl said, “We stick together. I understand.”

Nothing more needed to be said. Nothing more was said for most of the morning. We followed Rosalie and her uncle along the path until we came upon a felled tree that was somehow torn from the ground. Its root ripped apart the soil and damaged much of the path. Here, Rosalie’s uncle turned away from the disaster and began to follow a well-worn foot path that cut through the grass and fallen leaves. More often than not, we were in shadows and shade where the temperature felt ten degrees cooler than in the sun. The grass and leaves slowly thinned out and were replaced with stone. We crawled upon stone piles and crossed through miniature caves set by tumbled boulders. Our path rose and fell as it bore through the stone, but we were noticeably rising in elevation.

We reached a clearing around midday where the stone opened to show that we stood at the base of the mountain. My pack grew unbearably heavy, so too did my rifle. Sunlight attempted to massage my neck and shoulders, but my mind was lost in the cottony clouds that collected about the mountain peak.

We continued to walk within the remnants of stone cast away from the cliffs. From my vantage, there were thousands of boulders piled around the mountain’s foundation as if they were carelessly thrown away from the higher ground. Rosalie’s uncle led us down a path that burrowed between the boulders and into a larger cave that directed us through a straight path. Our footsteps scraped and echoed against the stone. The light became so faint that I reached out in front of me to make sure Earl was still there. Nary a word was spoken. Our shuffling feet was all that was present. I thought about unsheathing my sword to see if it would gather any light, but just as I was about to, a light showed at the end of our tunnel. My Love, our exit back into the forest was more shocking than anything else I experienced in the Cauchemar Forest.

Earl said, “Oh my God!” in a breathless voice.

The ground, each tree, stones, and any and every surface was coated by moss. Shades of sage, juniper, olive, emerald, and pear were speckled everywhere as if a painter simply flicked his brush at the forest. The size and scale of nature was back to normal proportions. We were in a cave but one that sustained green life. Sunlight shone through sporadic holes in the mossy ceiling above us, enough light to grow plants. There were trees growing from the ground beneath our feet and there were trees growing from the roof above. Grasses did the same. It was as if there was a large mirror reflecting nature and confusing the concept of what was upright. I could have easily found myself walking on the ceiling with the same ease as the ground. Everything defied gravity.

Earl stopped, took off his helmet, looked upward, and smiled with disbelief. “Can you believe this place?” He began laughing and spun around slowly to gather in the world. “It’s like we’re in between worlds,” He said. “There’s no up. Everything’s up.” He padded me on the shoulder and pointed up to the space between the tree’s where normal sized birds were flying both right side up and upside down. A squirrel chased another on a branch of a tree that grew from the ground we walked on and when they reached the end, they jumped into the air and landed on the spindly branches of an upside-down tree. The center of their leap was uninterrupted, gravity held no sway in their movements. Yet, mid leap their bodies turned to adjust with the right sidedness of the world they ran in.

“I’ll be,” Earl said. “Rosalie? Rosalie.”

Rosalie and her uncle had continued onward down the path, paying no mind to our surroundings, but she stopped when she heard Earl’s call. We ran to her and mimicked our shock about the surroundings. She smiled, pointed to the trees above us and then to the ground and said something that sounded like “Say lay juice day meyou.”

“Any idea of what she said?” I asked.

Earl smiled and said, “I have no idea. Probably something about middle or in between. I really wish that I learned French.” He then spoke to Rosalie by saying, “Cauchemar Forest?” while also pointing to the ground.

“Wee.” She pointed ahead, towards he uncle, and said, “Montangnay … no … far. Forest here. Montangnay there.”

“What about the chateau?” I said.

“Lay chateau day mah fameel ooh lah alterman?”

“Fameel. Your family. Where is that chateau?”

“Un altrahour?”

“Hour? Did she hour?” I asked Earl.

“I think so.” He smiled and nodded to Rosalie.

 She left us to join her uncle and we continued to walk.

“What do you think would happen if we were to climb a tree and jump?” Earl said.

“Sounds dangerous. Why not throw a rock? There’s no threat of a broken bone that way.”

“There’s no way I can throw a rock that high.”

“Oh, come on. Didn’t the Service build up your muscles?”

“Then you throw it!”

“I’ve never been much of a thrower. Always was put on first base because I could catch better than I could throw.”

“Fine.” Earl bent down to find a rock within the moss. His arm reached back while his leg stretched out and he threw the rock as hard as he could. We watched it climb up under the force of his throw, but when it should have slowed down, it appeared as if the rock picked up speed and continued going up. There was no way to tell where one world’s down direction ended and the other began.

Not long after, we came upon a small cabin where grey puffs of smoke slowly left the top of a stone chimney and collected like piles of cotton against the ground overhead. The homestead appeared to be alive, a part of the wilderness, whether it was planned or not. A young weeping willow, barely taller than the roof of the cabin, grew right alongside the inner wall. Its thin branches draped down and wrapped around the eaves and roof, like tentacles from a marauding squid. Several other saplings invaded the homestead walls. They grew through the wood siding, driving out nails and pulling some of the boards completely off. Moss and vines clung to the cabin’s walls wherever a tree didn’t grow.

A red hen rounded the corner, strutting and pecking at the ground. She was followed by two more whose feathers were colored like ashy wood from a dying fire. There was also a milking cow and a black goat walking freely to our left. A beam of sunlight shone down from the ground above that lit up a square on the other side of the cabin. Corn stalks as high as my knees and other leafy green plants were growing in a fenced garden. My Love, I laughed to myself. We struggle to keep the rabbits out of our little garden at home. Could you imagine the battle these people had with the animals of the Cauchemar Forest? A rabbit in this wood could wipe out the entire garden in one bite!

Excitement animated Rosalie and her uncle and added an extra pep in their step. Earl and I agreed to shoulder our weapons to prevent any misunderstandings and we caught up with our hosts. I don’t know the best way to describe this, but there was a certain sense of happiness wrapped around the cabin. The air felt fresher. The smells more robust. I felt an energy pulse. I know that sounds strange, but that’s what I felt.

We were about thirty feet away from the front door when it opened, and a man casually stepped out. All this time, I wondered who we’d meet and how they would react to our presence. I took in the man’s face and felt an eerie sense of familiarity that I couldn’t place immediately. He was broad shouldered and wore green like a soldier. My mind ticked and rolled like gears in a clock as I tried to figure out why everything felt wrong. The man smiled, a horrific smile, one that instantly bore into my soul.

Before we could do or say anything, both Earl and I were hit in the back of the head by something dull and solid hitting just below our helmets. We fell to the ground. Blackness loomed around the edges of my sight. I fought to pick myself up, but the pain was too much. In the brief seconds of consciousness I had, I looked back to the familiar man at the door and saw his boots.

Brown leather marked with notches.