Taste of Tenderloin Read Free

with evil intentions.
    The next morning they ate
cold K-rations, no fires.
    The heavily laden squad
struggled along through the thick upland forest, finally reaching
the coordinates of the meeting point in the early evening. No one
was there to meet them. Not yet.
    They made camp and
waited.
    At dusk, the jungle came
alive again with its grinding cacophony of sound. Second Squad ate
another cold meal and waited, nerves tight and exposed. The only
relief was when Big O moved among them, joking and cheering them up
individually.
    At about six, the jungle
suddenly turned quiet.
    Dead silence.
    Not even one pesky mosquito
ventured forth to harass Shane or any of his buddies.
    He, like most of the squad,
looked about wide-eyed, his throat tight and his stomach muscles
clenched painfully. He sweated heavily, a clammy, itching dampness
accumulating in his crotch and underarms, laden with the sour smell
of fear.
    Quiet…except for the sound
of operating handles on individual M-16s sliding ominously back and
forth into place. Rounds were chambered as everyone hunkered down
into a prone firing position and waited anxiously for something to
happen.
    Time crawled by
slowly.
    6:01, 6:02, 6:05,
6:10…6:30.
    The fog settled in,
clinging to the nearby tree limbs and vines like white gauze,
adding to the eerie mystique of the darkened, silent
jungle.
    Big O crawled up and down
his line of exhausted, nervous ground-pounders, patting shoulders,
whispering encouragement, handing out sticks of Doublemint and
advising everyone to “Try to hang loose.”
    Impossible.
    Shane tried a trick he’d
learned back at AITR to increase hearing acuity. He pinched his
nostrils together with a thumb and forefinger, then blew hard,
making his ear canals pop. He swallowed dryly, cocked his head to
the side, and listened intently.
    Still not a sound out in
the muggy night.
    So it was shocking when, a
few minutes later, the strange face first appeared in the
mist.
    The pale, thin, almost
skull-like shaven head stared at them with its sunken dark eyes
like an apparition in the fog. No more than ten feet away, it was a
still, macabre white portrait framed against a dark, foggy
background.
    A body coalesced from misty
particles, wearing Marine cams, with arms extending an M-16 in a
neutral position overhead. Finally, the whole man stepped
cautiously forward into better view.
    Shane swallowed, his throat
dry and scratchy.
    The gaunt man’s uniform was
washed out and tattered, though not quite rotting off him. It no
longer bore rank, name patch, or insignia of any kind—just a faded,
colorless set of Marine cams. He approached Big O in a silent,
unnatural movement—almost catlike. They spoke only a few words,
then the strange Marine made a slow lifting signal with one
arm.
    Only a few feet away from
where Second Squad lay hunkered down—so close they could have
reached out and touched the Marine—five sunken-eyed demons popped
up out of the waist-high grass. Not demons, really, but gaunt, pale
men wearing torn, faded shirts and pants that barely resembled
uniforms. They all carried M-16s slung carelessly over their
shoulders.
    How long have they been
that close? Shane asked himself, trying
again with little luck to work up a bit of moisture into his
mouth.
    “ Turn over to the men in
front of you what you’re carrying in your backpacks,” Sergeant
Owens ordered hoarsely.
    The grunts obeyed
immediately, relieved to be finally rid of their heavy burdens.
After taking the supplies from Second Squad, the pale-faced
phantoms gracefully slipped away, despite their bulging packs, and
disappeared silently back into the dark jungle. Soon, their bald,
gaunt leader—whomever the fuck he was—followed. A sickeningly sweet
stench hung in the damp air, even after they’d
disappeared.
    “ They weren’t any Lost
Patrol, no way,” Shane murmured to himself under his breath, but he
felt no real conviction. The comfort was shallow, like whistling
while passing a graveyard