SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

It was a long while before my eyes worked sufficiently so I could actually read the files.

After the Red Rain Fell Matt Hilton

Minutes Ago…

I should originally have been on point, but I’d been given the task of breaching the locks on the doors so “Duke” Dickinson went in first, and Duke died instead of me. I’d be a liar if I said a small part of me wasn’t thankful. Duke was no slouch, he was an experienced soldier, and he was armed with an M4 that’d tear new arseholes in an entire roomful of men, but the poor sod didn’t even get off a shot.

Our six-man team was stacked, ready for dynamic entry. I was the dedicated breacher, armed with a Remington 870 with a pistol grip and 12.5-inch barrel, and protected from any flying debris by a helmet, Oakley M-frames and breaching gloves, as well as an anti-ballistic vest over my battle fatigues. I aimed the shotgun at a downward angle at the lock, standing the requisite safe distance away, breathing slow and steady as I listened for the go. Cameras mounted on our helmets relayed live footage of the op back to a control vehicle where our officers counted down. I probably looked cool and collected but my butt-hole was twitching in anticipation.

Greenlight.

I pulled the trigger.

The shockwave from the Hatton round pulverised the locking mechanism and bolt. I ducked back against the jamb, allowing the shotgun to swing on its shoulder harness, and brought up my own M4 as Sgt ‘Hooky’ Johnson yanked the door wide and Duke powered inside. And that was it for him. A split-second of thunder as he brayed out a challenge that echoed through the warehouse, then steaming chunks of him splashed the threshold. Hooky was only a beat behind him, and he skidded on a slick tubular worm of Duke’s intestines. He went sideways, his shoulder rebounding off the doorjamb before he righted and lurched inside. His boots sucked at the splash of bloody guts on the concrete floor and he cursed loudly, but then the rest of us were charging past.

Things had happened so quickly that none of us realised there’d been no detonation, no drumroll of gunfire, that had ripped Duke to pieces, and we were already inside that gloomy space before I recalled that this was going to be no normal sweep and clear operation. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The team was one man down and had no clear idea of what we were up against.

But we had an objective from which we wouldn’t back down.

We had to sweep and clear the building, each of us with an area of responsibility to secure with overlapping fields of fire, immediate, near and far zones. With Duke torn to shreds, it meant the responsibilities shifted for team members, but we were experienced enough that we could flow with the shifting circumstances. Hooky was now point man, and he cleared the immediate and near zones with one blistering hail of bullets while the rest of us formed a stack alongside the first corner we came to. While I crouched there, ready to proceed again, I looked for hostiles, dead or alive, but there were none.

So what the fuck had killed Duke?

Something shifted in the darkness ahead.

Hooky fired, his M4 lighting the corridor beyond with sporadic flashes.

“What the hell was that?” he said.

“Whatever it was,” snapped Jack ‘RP’ Wilson, “it got Duke. We aren’t leaving this place ’til I’m wearing its fucking skull for a hard hat.”

RP moved past Hooky, sliding along a wall in the darkened corridor, his carbine seeking targets. Hooky signalled the rest of us to move while he covered from the corner. I glanced at him as I passed, and saw that he was chewing his lips. He blinked at me. “I put half a clip into that fucker and it didn’t go down. Stay frosty, Muppet.”

Hooky wasn’t insulting me. We’d all gained monikers that had stayed with us since basic training. My real name is Bill Grover. Think of that blue puppet with the red nose from Sesame Street and you’ll understand why I got stuck with ‘Muppet’.

“I’m icy, Sarge,” I promised him. No way would I admit to almost shitting myself, even though we all were.

Then RP was in full reverse and his machine gun roared.

The two guys in front of me — ‘Brainpan’ and ‘Twinkle’ — made target acquisition at much the same time. Their M4s screamed in unison as brass rattled on the floor at their feet. Flashes and sparks lit the corridor, and beyond the drifting smoke I watched the shadows surge and contort, glimpsing reaching hands, and heads lolling on malformed shoulders. Many of their rounds struck walls, floor and ceiling, but as many bullets found their targets. The solid smack of projectiles through flesh was a drumroll that sung to my heart. I raised my M4 to join in with the chorus.