A Battle Raging Read Free Page A

the people who lived here had little incentive to return, although there were instances in other villages where the evacuees did return to try to start their lives over.
    Ahead was an alcove that he guessed led to other rooms. He hand-signaled Marty and Joseph, his weapon ready as he stepped into a very small hallway, and they formed a line behind him.
    Just a whisper of a sound. Again, could be a rummaging animal.
    But it wasn't.
    A blast from a room to the left. Zach saw the flash just seconds before he felt something ripping into him. He'd been facing the east of the hallway, a gamble that allowed the insurgent to take him down.
    Yells and shots rang above his head as he collapsed to the floor. Strangely, the initial pain died; he felt nothing.
     
    Zach shook himself awake, forcing an end to the dream. Or rather, an end to the nightmare. He reached for the sweating pitcher of ice water he kept on his nightstand. He moved in a half sitting position and poured the water in a glass next to the pitcher. Most of the ice had melted through the night, but the water was still cold. He welcomed the cold as it ran through him, chilled him. Made him remember that he was still alive.
    Death was a running theme in his life. Had been for four years now, when he for all purposes had died that hot, summer day in Afghanistan. And had been revived in a MASH unit several days later, with a surgeon standing over him telling him he was lucky to be alive. That was the day he found out that Joseph Clarence, moving in just behind him, had also been struck down. But there had been no hope there as half of his face had been blown off. The rest of the men had taken down the few insurgents who had been headquartered in a couple of buildings.
    His being alive was a miracle according to the surgeons and nurses who had worked to bring him back. The enemy's bullet had torn through the lumbar region of his spine which in a lot of cases is a fatal injury. However, it had left him with a permanent lesion. They tried to convince him that he should be grateful that he'd only suffered what they called an incomplete injury. Which meant that he could have sensation below the lesion. But no movement. No fucking movement ever. He would never walk again.
    Sometimes he wished the bullet had gotten him in the brain , just like it did Joseph. Joseph who never liked being called Joe. Only twenty four years old. A wife and an infant son. Zach often wished that he could turn the tables and that it was Joseph who had gotten the reprieve. He would have done so much more than Zach ever would. And even in a wheelchair, he would have been there for his family. Not just a waste of space.
    One of the bedroom windows was partially opened and the temperature in the room had dropped into the fifties. Despite the chill, he felt a sweat bead running along his forehead. Mind over matter. His dream had taken him back to that scorching day and his body was responding. Much as it did when he dreamed of a sexual encounter, either from the past or arising from his fervid illusion. On those nights he would awaken and find himself hard, ready for someone who was not even there.
    He took another sip of the water, welcomed the shiver. It wouldn't do him any good to think of sex tonight, or any other night for that matter. That part of him was dead…well, at least in a coma.
    For some reason, the image of his sketch popped into his head - the nude picture he had drawn of the instructor yesterday afternoon. He hadn't known he was going to do that. Not until the moment he had put charcoal to paper. He had been set to draw the piece of fruit, no big deal. Yet he had to admit to himself that he partially did it to get a rise out of her. Their first encounter had been rancorous enough, thanks to his assholery. And he hadn't meant that either. He couldn't have explained his anger at that moment to himself, let alone to anyone else. He knew the incident was something he should talk to Dr. Madison