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  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “In the course of your reconnaissance mission that evening, did you encounter Mister Mackey at any time?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did,” I say.

  “What were the circumstances of that encounter?”

  I took a breath, trying to avoid the death-by-eyeball gaze from Mackey. “Captain, in the course of my mission, I heard a clicking noise, similar to what I’ve heard before when Creepers are on the move. Further investigation revealed Mister Mackey and a companion, by a campfire, attempting to attract the attention of the Creeper by imitating its distinctive noise.”

  The captain turns to the two civilians, looking stunned. “Is that true, Mister Mackey?”

  He’s still defiant. “Why not? Me and my cousin, we heard the Gates Foundation, they wanna pay out ten thousand New Dollars to anybody who can capture a Creeper live. So that’s what we was tryin’ to do.”

  “Sergeant,” Captain Allard continues, still looking at the bandaged civilian with disbelief. “Do tell us what happened next?”

  “I advised Mister Mackey and his companion that they had to leave, that they were in an area that had been declared a Military Reservation due to the Creeper sighting, and that their lives were in danger if they stayed there.”

  “Did they leave?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “What then?”

  “Captain, I warned them that they had to leave. I told them that their lives were in danger. They became belligerent. They refused to leave. I decided I had no other option. So I shot Mister Mackey.”

  “In the leg?” she asks.

  Mackey shouts, “Of course in the leg, you dumb broad! Can’t you see the damn bandage?”

  “Sir,” she says crossly, “you are on this post as a guest. Counselor, please advise your client to stay quiet unless he’s asked a question.”

  Farrell whispers something into Mackey’s ear, and his face is red and he glares at me, but he keeps quiet.

  “Sergeant, do go on,” she says.

  I say, “They refused to leave. There was a Creeper in the area. They were interfering with my mission. I didn’t want to shoot him, but I didn’t have time to debate or discuss.”

  “What happened after you shot him?”

  He said “ouch,” I thought. Aloud I say, “I gave his companion first aid supplies. I departed the scene. Approximately fifteen minutes later I encountered the Creeper. I engaged the Creeper, it was terminated, and then I launched a flare, to inform the nearby combat dispatcher that the scene was secure.”

  Captain Allard folds her hands again, glances over at the lawyer, lets out a sigh. “Counselor, let’s look at the facts, all right? According to the Status of Forces agreement with the state of New Hampshire, any complaint filed against a member of the armed forces on this post will be adjudicated with a panel consisting of two civilians, two members of the military, and the district’s state senator.”

  Farrell leans forward but the captain raises her hand. “Based on Sergeant Knox’s extensive service record, decorations, and his participation in the Battle of Merrimack Valley, plus your client’s trespassing in a military reservation and his attempt to interfere with the sergeant’s mission, do you really think you have a case? Especially when he would have been within his rights to kill your client at the time?”

  Mackey says, “Damn right we have a case! He shot me!”

  Farrell looks like he’d rather be anyplace but here. He coughs and says, “Well, now that you mention that, it seems that—”

  Captain Allard opens the top drawer of her desk, removes a pad of paper. “Tell you what, counselor. I appreciate you coming here and getting this resolved. I’m sure you know from your fellow attorneys what has happened to some people who have made claims against the armed forces that their, um, neighbors have thought were baseless. Very unfortunate, of course.”

  She takes a pencil, scrawls something on a piece of paper, passes it over. “Here. Before you and your client leave the base, you can have lunch at our dining facility.”

  Farrell looks ashamed and now I’ve changed my mind about the poor guy; feeling a touch of sympathy for a grown man trying to make a living in a strange world that has little in common from the place where he went to law school and started his practice. When all most people care about is getting enough to eat and not getting sick, it must be rugged out there for a lawyer to survive. He takes the paper and says, “Very well, Captain.”

  Mackey turns and says, “You’re fired, you shyster. You’re fired. I’m outta here.”

  He gets up and grabs his crutches, thrusts them under his arms, and he and his dismissed attorney get to the office door. Mackey says, “A kid. He’s just a goddamn kid!”

  Captain Allard softly closes the drawer of her desk. “Whatever his age, he’s a non-commissioned officer in the service of his nation. Do remember that the next time you decide to trespass on a military reservation.”

  When the officer door shuts, the captain rubs at the back of her neck. “Sweet Jesus, Randy, that was a waste of a good chunk of my morning time.”

  “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Sorry doesn’t particularly cut it, especially when it comes to civilians.” She rubs hard at the back of her neck again. “Especially since the war is over, civilians, can’t blame ’em, are going to start feeling itchy. They’re going to start wondering why the armed forces are still being treated relatively royally and practically everything they do is either rationed or censored. It’s been a long ten years.”

  “Ma’am, hard to believe the war is over with Creepers still running around out there.”

  She lets out a deep breath. “Above your pay grade, and definitely above mine. Now, Randy, did you really have to shoot him? Honestly? Or were you just pissed at him and his cousin?”

  I’m not sure what she’s getting at, so I guess the truth will have to do. “Ma’am, I was angry, there’s no doubt, but they were also impeding my mission. I didn’t have much time. The Creeper was out there, and I had to find him.”

  “You could have killed him.”

  “No, ma’am,” I say. “I knew where I shot him.”

  She eyes me for a moment, and says, “For someone your age, you do have an impressive service record, Randy. But that and an ear that goes deaf at convenient times won’t help you forever. Or your family background.”

  I say crossly, “I’ve not once used my family, not once, and you know it, ma’am.”

  She picks up her pencil. “Perhaps, but that’s enough for this morning. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And what’s that?”

  I say, “Could you write me a note for Mister Tierney. I’m afraid I’ve missed today’s geometry class.”

  Captain Allard takes a piece of paper. “Very well, Randy.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ah, yes classes. After the dreadful first years of the war, when casualties were so very high, the only way the surviving Congress would allow a change in enlistment laws were to tie them into continued schooling. So even though I enlisted on my twelfth birthday, I still had to go to school at my different postings. Between training, deployments and missions, I still had to find time for geometry, U.S. history, military history, English, Creeper physiology and tactics, and other standard high school courses.

  But no driver’s ed. Not many running cars left out there.

  This afternoon my class in English Composition is over and I get up from the desk, thinking ahead to the Ranger Ball this early evening, when my instructor, Mister Lewis, motions me over to his corner of the classroom. Mister Lewis is an old, wrinkled man with loose flaps of flesh around his cheeks and neck. He is one of a handful of teachers from St. Paul’s who stayed behind when the war began and I once saw a black and white photo of him back in the day, when it looked like he weighed nearly three hundred pounds. He lost a lot of weight during the famine years and has never put it bac
k on.

  He smiles cheerfully at me. His eyebrows are white and bushy, and look like old brushes that have been working way too long. He says, “Randy, that last essay you wrote, about when you salvaged that house in Rockport when you were in the Boy Scouts, was spectacular.”

  I feel warm and safe all of a sudden. “Uh, thanks, Professor Lewis.”

  “No, I mean it,” he says. “The descriptions . . . the smell of dried mud, of old seaweed in the yard, of the torn wallpaper. The feeling that you were trespassing as you searched through the cupboards, looking for canned goods . . . and the ending, when you wished that you could go back there someday, when things were better, and apologize to the family that lived there when they moved back. Very moving. Randy, you keep that kind of work up, and you’ll be on track for getting an ‘A’ at the end of this term. If you talk to your fellow classmates and soldiers, you’ll know I don’t hand out ‘A’s very often.”

  My face feels even warmer. “Thanks again, professor,” and I make to leave, and he says, “Not so fast, Randy. Pull up a chair.”

  I sit next to him, look at the clutter on his desk, the dusty books and framed etchings of writers like Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Longfellow, and shoved in one corner, a dead computer terminal. He has on an old suit that’s shiny along the sleeves, and a red bowtie that’s almost hidden by the folds of skin.

  He says, “You’ve got a real talent for writing, Randy, and I hope you develop it. What were you thinking of doing after you’re discharged?”

  Now I don’t feel so warm and safe. He’s asking questions I’ve been avoiding. “Discharged? What have you heard?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing official, of course, but the President’s said the war is over, correct? Eventually the Creepers and their bases here will be destroyed, the killer stealth satellites in orbit will be hunted down and disabled . . . you’ve been in service for quite some time, have seen plenty of combat. If other wars in the past can be used as an example, I’d say you’ll be eligible to return to civilian life at some point. When that blessed day occurs, Randy, instead of going to the Army’s War College, I would hope you’d go to one of the universities that are still open. A talent like yours shouldn’t go to waste.”

  I say the first thing that comes to mind.

  “Professor, I don’t know how to be a civilian.”

  Back in my room, checking my class assignments for tomorrow, thinking about what Professor Lewis had just said. Go back into civilian life? What the hell was he talking about? My early memories, before the war, are all a jumble of images, tastes and shapes. Riding in a car. Riding in a boat. On my mother’s lap, as she shows me a funny cartoon on a laptop computer or tablet. Looking out a window, nice and warm and dry, watching the snow fall, wondering if Santa has gotten my e-mail.

  After that, it’s even more of a jumble. Dad and Mom looking serious. The television on all the time, mostly showing white static. Phone ringing. Melissa crying in her bedroom. Me and Dad, driving in his Volkswagen. The car dying. No lights. Living in a tent in a high school football field somewhere. Dad silently weeping in the corner of a smelly canvas tent. Eating dandelion greens, old stale cheese, sour apples.

  I push all those memories away. Long ago I learned that when a Creeper can attack at any time, memories like that just get in the way of doing your job, and living one more day.

  Beside, it’s time to get ready for the Ranger Ball.

  In my closet I pull out a nice salvaged pair of Levi’s, a bit long and floppy around my feet, but looking nearly brand new. I also have pair of Nike sneakers that I only take out for special occasions, and I’m trying to decide if I can get away with a Hawaiian shirt that has a rip on the back, but which has been expertly stitched together, or a plain green T-shirt that’s brand new, when there’s a knock at the door.

  I open it up and Mike Millett comes in, a Specialist in my squad. He’s squat, muscular, with tiny eyes under strong wide eyebrows, but he has a booming laugh and an almost uncanny ability to find a Creeper in pitch darkness.

  “Sergeant, can you help a brother out?” he asks, his booming voice nearly shy.

  Warily, I say, “Depends.”

  He sits down heavily on my bunk, making the springs squeak. “Thing is, I got a date tonight, for the dance. Doris, who works in the dining facility.”

  I turn my desk’s chair around and sit down, resting my forearms on the back. Doris is a quiet girl, works in the dishwashing area. A contract civilian who walks with a limp, because of a broken foot years ago that never healed quite right. “Good for you, Mike. How can I help?”

  He kicks off his shoes, sticks his feet out. Big toes pop out from holes in each olive drab sock. “That’s how all of my socks look like. See? Can you lend me a pair?”

  I say, “You expecting to show Doris your feet tonight?”

  “Don’t you remember, last dance?”

  “No, I don’t,” I say. “Didn’t go. Pulled guard duty that night.”

  “Oh,” he says. “Well, they were playing some of that 1950’s music, real fun stuff and the guy spinning the records, said that back then, dances were called sock hops, so we all had to kick our shoes off. Suppose he does the same thing tonight? I don’t want to look ridiculous in front of Doris.”

  I say, “You promise not to tear them with those big feet of yours?”

  “Promise,” he says.

  “And you’ll wash and dry them before you bring them back?”

  “Hell, yeah, Sergeant,” he says. “You can count on me.”

  I get up from my chair, go to my bureau and open the top drawer. Pull out a pair of socks, toss them to Mike, who catches them with one hand.

  Grinning, he gets up. “Thanks, Sergeant. Owe you one. Hey, how did your provost general meeting go?”

  I close the drawer. “Fair enough,” I say. “Funny how civilians get ticked off when you shoot them for not listening to reason.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” he says. “Hey, just so you know, services are on for tomorrow for Ruiz. Ten hundred hours.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Hey, before you leave?”

  He’s by the door. “Sure, Sergeant.”

  “About Ruiz . . . I heard some in the squad think I should have intervened. Shouldn’t have let him go out on his first Recon Ranger op by himself.”

  Millett looks solemn, no longer the happy fellow ranger, coming in to cage a pair of clean socks off his sergeant. “Was it Zane?” I ask.

  He stays quiet, and then Millett juggles his new pair of socks in one beefy hand. “Thing is, Ruiz had a sister. Celeste. Real cutie. Word I heard, Zane was sweet on her. Was becoming close buds with Ruiz, hoping to make way with Celeste.” Mike shrugs. “Not your fault, Sergeant. The Ell-Tee thought he was ready, you thought he was ready . . . we had a job to do.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Yeah, well, not sure if you heard the other news.”

  “What’s that?”

  Millett opens the door. “County militia tracked down the Coastie gang that ambushed Ruiz and his K-9. Two guys and two girls, from Baltimore. God only knows how in hell they kept alive so long and found their way up here.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I say.

  “You?” he says. “Maybe so, but those four . . . oh yeah, they’re damned. The militia found some of Ruiz’s gear on them and they had a quick trial. Boom.”

  “Shot?”

  “No, hung from that covered bridge Ruiz had been dropped off at,” Millett says, going down the hallway. “Figured they wanted to save ammunition.”

  With Mike Millett gone, I decide I’m going to be colorful tonight and choose the Hawaiian shirt, but Professor Lewis’s words are still nagging me, because what will I do if I do get discharged? Or would I want to go career? That was one hell of a thought, for like everybody else in my squad, platoon, company, battalion and probably the entire armed forces of the United States, I bitched and moaned about the food, about the officers, about the President and Congress an
d the war and how the damn civvies are always screwing things up . . .

  But with no more war, what could I do?

  What would I do?

  Another knock on the door. Damn, I thought, must be my night to be commissary for the entire squad.

  But when I open the door, it’s my platoon leader, Lieutenant David May.

  And he doesn’t look happy.

  “Randy,” he says. “You’ve got a problem.”

  An Excerpt From the Journal of Randall Knox

  Perimeter guard duty last night, made even more fun when I was assigned the newbie in our platoon, sturdy girl named Pittman from the upper reaches of Maine. Complained to the lieutenant about having to babysit a newbie, but the Ell-Tee reminded me of the last two times I was late for P.E., and did I want to babysit newbies for the next quarter in addition, so I shut my mouth and off I went.

  Pittman, like all newbies, is eager to get at it, maybe even get a chance to chase a Creeper. Said she was the best shot in her family, always kept the smokehouse filled with venison. Told her to relax, our job was to poop and snoop along the outside perimeter of the fort, keep watch for two-legged marauders, not eight-legged. Cool cloudy night, kept an eye on Pittman. She was nervous but hid it well. Wanted to hear war stories from me and I had to tell her to shut up, to focus on the mission, however routine it seemed.

  About a half hour in, at the northwest corner, Pittman found a break in the fence line, saw a wooden pole with some slats nailed to it, used as a ladder. We unslung weapons, moved in slow. Pittman whispered if we should call for back-up, and I told her to quiet it down. Heard noises, got a good idea of what we’d find, but I wanted to see how Pittman reacted. About ten minutes in, came to the Rockford Dining Facility. Told Pittman to back me up. Flashed on light and caught three young kids rummaging around in the waste bins out back. Pittman wanted to get to one of the comm shacks, get word out to the post Provost Marshal to get the kids arrested. Told her to relax. Kids shaking with fear, even though one real young kid—girl or boy, couldn’t tell—wouldn’t stop chewing on a chicken bone. Tossed them over my night field ration pack, told ’em to get the hell out. They ran like squirrels being chased by Thor, though the youngest one still had a hand on the chewed chicken bone.