Fiction Friday: The Greatest Fear. A World at War Short Story.

The Greatest Fear

by Mark H. Walker

1

Below the Demon the night twinkled merrily, cracking and popping like a festive bonfire. Indeed, much of the city was aflame. The two sides had been fighting over the streets and flaming buildings for the better part of a day. Tonight the guns winked happily, they cracked, and they popped. Down the street, amidst the rubbled remains of a market, a tracked weapon fired its gun, dealt its death.

He understood, but not really. He understood in the way of one who is intimately familiar with, but has never experienced.

Immortality was his birthright. It was a thought that begat a chuckle. He didn’t remember his birth. He had always existed. Just as he always would exist, fueled by their belief in evil, strengthened by their desire for a mysterious darkness.

            They died. Recently they had died in great numbers, huge swaths of destruction cutting down their soldiers, blooming firestorms consuming their people. They feared death more than anything. That he understood, but because it was a state he had never, would never, experience, he understood incompletely. But he understood it well enough to make him smile.

He understood many things about the mortals.  He understood that they would sacrifice, indeed cast aside, their precious morals, sense of duty, ingrained responsibility-- for sex, for money, for power, for that secret special something that each desired.

Again the chuckle, noiseless noise. Noiseless because he only made noise, he only existed in what they called the physical world, when he wished.

 But the most important thing he understood was congruent with the first thing, and key to his satisfaction. He understood that they feared, perhaps even more than they feared death, what they didn’t understand. And he fed off fear. That which created fear gave him joy.

Below him the tracked weapon’s gun cracked again, shattering windows on both sides of the street. Further along, its target exploded, the brightness briefly bringing day to the merry night. More death, more destruction, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. They understood the death that the tracked weapon brought, so although they feared it, they did not fear it as he knew they would fear that which they did not understand. They understood life. They understood death.

They understood death.

The thought brought pause. They understood death, and they feared what they did not understand. He needed to only make death incomprehensible, to make their fear complete. Again the chuckle, but this time it morphed to a full, throaty laugh as the Demon imagined his joy.

2

Consciousness came slowly. The complete blackness of an unaware mind lightening to the inky darkness of an unlit night, the complete lack of sound giving way to a dull ringing.

Jacob Hood blinked, once, twice, unaware of why the night was inky black, unaware of why he was unaware. And then the night flashed, the night boomed, and in the instant of the flash, Jacob saw and Jacob was aware.

A pair of shadows stand in the room, dark, foreboding. A body lies on the floor, but it isn’t only a body; it is Gaelan Katsarous, Jacob’s friend, but closer than a friend, a brother, his lanky body easily identifiable despite the Kevlar vest, web gear, baggy fatigues, and helmet that clothe him. And then Gaelan groans.

One shadow hisses a word to the other. A foreign word. A language Jacob doesn’t understand, but one he recognizes: Russian.

They see Jacob’s friend, Jacob’s brother, and as quick as death both pull their assault rifles to their shoulders, the stubby barrels aimed at his prone friend. There is no time to think, maybe there is no time to act, but act Jacob does.

He feels the M-16 under his body, he rolls, aiming his rifle as it comes free. The M-16’s exploding cartridges are deafening, their noisy energy magnified by the four walls, the strobing light brighter than the previous moment’s booming flash. The bullets throw the closest Russian soldier into the wall. Hard. Pictures fall, a previously unnoticed vase shatters. The soldier dies. His comrade spins to face Jacob, but Jacob is faster, the sights of his rifle settling on the dark shadow under the Russian’s helmet. Jacob squeezes the trigger and his rifle clicks, just clicks. No ammo. No time to reload.

The flat crack of the 9mm pistol pierces Jacob's fear, causing him to flinch. The Russian tumbles, landing next to Jacob, clawing the hardwood floor of the West German house as if he could crawl away from the pain, leave the certainty of his imminent death, but he can’t. Another crack from the pistol explodes the Russian’s head.

“Shit, Worm! You got his fucking brains all over me.”

“Yeah,” is Gaelan’s laconic reply.

For a second neither moves. Worm pans the inky room with the barrel of the 9mm. Jacob breathes. Then the second passes. In the distance, something flashes, maybe lightning or maybe a salvo of Russian artillery shells, crumbling buildings, ripping bodies. Maybe the same battery that sent the salvo against this building. The salvo that knocked them silly, the salvo before the Russian shadows entered the room. Whatever the event, it doesn’t matter. It isn’t happening right here, it isn’t ripping their bodies.

“That’s it.” Worm whispers. “I think.”

“We hope,” nods Jacob, immediately realizing the gesture is wasted in the darkness.

Jacob stands, slips a magazine from his web gear, and snaps it into his M-16, his hand smearing Russian gore on the stock. It’s okay, Jacob thinks. Cleaning can wait.

Blocks over, something explodes and a fire erupts, the glow dully illuminating the room. The light reflects off the lenses in Worm’s glasses. Something dark traces a line down his cheek. Jacob assumes it’s blood.

Worm smiles. “You look like shit, my brother.”

Jacob laughs, “You aren’t looking too good yourself.”

Worm shrugs, and holsters the pistol. A moment’s searching and he pulls his M-16 off the floor, checks the action, slaps in a new clip. He turns to the window. It’s a broad, bay-type window. Shattered now, and by the light from the burning building Jacob notices the paperback in Worm’s hip pocket. Always with the paperback, always reading. A bookworm. Worm for short.

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