“I’m sure you have,” said Kraus. “They have no idea what it’s like here-the real people back in their real world. Where there are laws and conventions, right and wrong, and everything makes sense. They can’t know what it’s like here, or why would fathers and mothers allow their sons to be sent into Hell…and then act all surprised when the command structure breaks down, army discipline breaks down, and their sons have to do awful, unforgivable things just to stay alive? What did you do, Captain, to earn a mission like this?”
“I wiped out a whole village,” I said. “Killed them alclass="underline" men, women and children. And then refused to say sorry.”
“Why, Captain? Why would you do such a thing?”
For the first time, I was being asked the question by someone who sounded like he actually wanted to hear the truth. So I considered my answer seriously. “Why? Because I wanted to. Because I could. No matter what you do here, the jungle always throws back something worse…I don’t see the enemy as people any more, just so many beasts in the jungle. The things they’ve done…they give the jungle’s dark savagery a face, that’s all. And after a while, after you’ve done awful, terrible things in your turn, and it hasn’t made a damned bit of difference…you feel the need to do more and more, just to get a response from that bland, indifferent, jungle face. You want to see it flinch, make it hurt, the way it’s hurt you. That need drives you on, to greater and greater acts of savagery…until finally, you look into the face of the jungle…and see your own face looking back at you.”
“I know,” said Major Kraus. “I understand.”
I sat slumped in my chair, exhausted by the force of my words. And Kraus smiled on me, like a father with a prodigal son.
“It’s the curse of this country, this war, Captain. This isn’t like any other war we ever fought. There are no real battle lines, no clear disputed territories, no obvious or lasting victories. Only a faceless enemy, an opposing army and a hateful population, prepared to do anything, anything at all, to drive us out. Any atrocity, any crime against nature or civilization, is justified to them because we are outsiders, and therefore by definition not human.
“There is only one way to win this war, Captain, and that is to be ready and willing to do even worse things to them. To embrace the darkness of the jungle in our hearts, and in our souls, and throw it in their faces. We tried to raise a light in the darkness, when we should have eaten the darkness up with spoons and made it ours-given it shape and purpose and meaning. I have done an awful and unforgivable thing here, Captain, but for the first time I am making progress. I am taking and holding territory, and I am forcing the enemy back.
“I will win this war, which my own superiors are saying cannot be won. I will win it because I am ready and willing to do the one thing the enemy is not willing to do. They are ready to fight us to the death, but I have made death a weapon I can turn against them. And after my dead warriors have subjugated this entire country, North and South, and I have won because not one living soul remains to stand against me… Then, then, I will take the war home. I will cross the great waters with a dead army millions strong, and I will turn them loose on the streets of America, turn them loose on all those uncaring people who sent their children into Hell.
“I will make our country a charnel house, and then a cemetery, and then, finally, the war will be over. And I can rest.”
He looked at me for a long time, and his smile and his eyes were kind. “They sent you here to kill me, Captain Marlowe, those cold and uncaring men. But you won’t. Because that’s not what you really want. Stay here, with me, and be my Boswell; write the record of what I am doing. And then I will send it home, ahead of the army that’s coming, as a warning. It’s only right they should understand their crime, before they are punished for it. Tell my story, Captain Marlowe, and when I don’t need you any more…I promise I will kill you, and let you stay dead. No more bad thoughts, no more bad dreams, no more darkness in the heart. You will rest easy, sleep without dreams, and feel nothing, nothing at all. Isn’t that what you really want, Captain Marlowe?”
“Yes,” I said. “Oh, yes.”
Major Kraus smiled happily. “I shall put an end to all wars, and death shall have dominion, when Johnny comes marching home.
“‘The horror! The horror!’” he said, laughing.
Last Stand by Kelley Armstrong
Kelley Armstrong is the bestselling author of the Otherworld urban fantasy series, which began with Bitten, and the latest of which, Waking the Witch, came out in August. She is also the author of the young-adult series Darkest Powers, consisting of three books so far: The Summoning, The Awakening, and The Reckoning. In comics, Armstrong recently finished working on a five-issue arc for Joss Whedon’s Angel comic book series. In addition to the previously mentioned work, which all fits into the fantasy/paranormal genre, Armstrong has also written two thrillers featuring hitwoman Nadia Stafford: Exit Strategy and Made to Be Broken.
Teachers have a rough job. Lousy pay, lots of unpaid overtime work grading papers, having to keep order alone in overcrowded classrooms full of unruly kids who would rather be anywhere than learning trigonometry. Not to mention all the abuse from crazy parents and ignorant lawmakers. In 1925, a twenty-four-year-old football coach named John Scopes was actually brought up on criminal charges in Tennessee for having taught students the scientific facts about human evolution. With all the drawbacks, it’s understandable why so many teachers leave the profession after just a few years.
But bad as our educational system undoubtedly is, things could always be worse-say, the complete and total breakdown of civilization in the wake of an infection that causes the recently dead to rise again as terrifying monsters. That’s the sort of event that really puts things in perspective, and makes you pine for the days of students not paying attention in class. In the 1998 movie Saving Private Ryan, a squad of WWII soldiers speculate endlessly about the former profession of their captain, before he finally reveals to them that he had been a simple schoolteacher.
War and upheaval can shuffle the world, thrusting us into roles we could have never imagined. In our next story we find another former teacher leading military forces under desperate circumstances, doing things she never thought she’d be capable of, and facing off against an enemy more relentless and implacable than she ever could have feared.
If you had to make a last stand for the survival of your race, Monica supposed there were worse places to do it. As she gazed out over the fort walls, she could imagine fields of green and gold, corn stalks swaying in the breeze.
How long had it been since she’d tasted corn? Monica closed her eyes and remembered August backyard barbecues, the smell of ribs and burgers on the grill, the chill of an icy beer can as Jim pressed it to her back, the sound of Lily’s laughter as she darted past, chasing the other children with water balloons.
Monica opened her eyes and looked out at the scorched fields. She’d been the one who’d given the order to set the blaze, but there hadn’t been corn in them, not for years. Only barren fields of grass and weeds that could hide the enemy, best put to the torch.
“Commander,” a voice said behind her.
She turned and a pimply youth snapped his heels together and saluted. The newer ones did that sometimes, and she’d stopped trying to break them of the habit. They needed to believe they were in a proper army, with proper rules, even if they’d never worn a uniform before. It was what kept them going, let them believe they could actually win this war.