What a Mess an Exit Can Make 2

 

            

"Life is energy contained, death is its expansion"

    There was a clearing in the brush as the soldiers approached its center. Their numbers counted three of them; Frog, Dallas, and Louisiana. They all wore matching fatigues, Dallas had a soft pack of Marlboros wrapped up in his shirt sleeve and Frog had a lit cigarette in his mouth. The men all had army helmets on, each had adorned their own with a series of colorful words and helmet graffiti. Louisiana’s helmet said “Live fast, die alone”, and it had a piece of dirty tan cloth hanging off of the back with an elastic band wrapped around the brim, home to a lighter and an ace of spades. Dallas’s helmet said “Born to die” on the front, and on the side it had the months September through February crossed off on it, March was not yet crossed off. The back of his helmet read said “I live here, I’m not a tourist.” Frog’s helmet had the most written on it, there were a few Latin phrases, but in big bold inking the phrase “In god we trust” was written on the side.
 The men reached the jungle clearing and looked up. Surrounding them was a thick dense brush, roots and limbs intertwining one another creating a mask that hid the soldiers beneath it. Louisiana took out a small magenta bottle; on it was a glass carving of a half goat half man playing a flute. He lifted up his M-60, and sprayed it 3 times, canvassing the entire rifle. A pungent scent of beets and napalm filled the air. The jungle behind them a few clicks back was encompassed in flames from the napalm attack, an attempt to weed out the remaining Vietnamese troops as well as to flood their tunnels with flames that would engulf them.
                “What the fuck are you spraying on your gun? It smells like fucking dirt and gook spit.” Said Frog
                Louisiana paused from spritzing his rifle, and matched eyes with Frog. For several moments Louisiana just stood and stared, the smoke from the flames behind them reached up into the sky and carried with it the smell of gasoline and raw fuel, a smell that would duel wildly with the smell of the perfume.
                “This shit will grant me immortality, man. I spray the gun whenever the time feels right, and so far it’s given me luck. I’ve become one with my rifle through this perfume.”
                Frog looked cautiously at Lou and jokingly chanted “This is my rifle, this is my gun, this one’s fighting, and the fumes are for fun”
                Looking from Dallas to Frog, Lou said,    
                “I found it at that gook encampment a few clicks back, I smelled something in the air that felt powerful, it was like a scent I smelled when I was a kid, and it was ripe with the smell of beets and tainted vanilla. I followed my nose to a little mook box and recovered it from there. I don’t know what compelled me to spray it on my gun, but since I started spritzing this lifeline, I’ve had hairs stand up on my back every time danger is near.
  Frog looked at Louisiana with a dazed look of confusion and disbelief smeared across his filthy face.
                “You seriously think there’s some mystical element to that fucking scrooge mcgooks bottle you found at one of their stinking burrows?” said Dallas
                Louisiana pulled his gun to his ugly mug and took a big whiff, his eyes dilating as the scent of the perfume permeated his nostrils.
                “You’ve done way too much acid since you’ve been here man. How the fuck do you think that some mook perfume will protect you?” said Frog
               

Frog closed his eyes after glaring at Louisiana as he sniffed his gun. Frog riffled through his memories and paused on one, a flood of feelings rushed through him as he recalled how he had gotten his name. He used to go by Truck, but after that day in the village, everyone called him Frog. Floating in consciousness, Frog remembered how he had tried to save that dirty little village boy from a burning villa, and how he was subsequently stabbed by the boy almost immediately after rescuing him from the wreckage. Frog watched in his mind’s eye as he threw the boy to the ground and grabbed the knife the boy held and thrust it repeatedly into his chest, crushing the boy’s rib cage and tearing holes in his flesh. Mounted atop the now lifeless boy, one of Frog’s platoon walked over to him and said,     
   “You’re like the fucking frog in that scorpion and the frog fable. You fucking knew these people want us dead, a majority of them wants nothing more than to kill us, but you still tried to save that little shit. You fucking idiot, you deserved to get stabbed.”
                Frog opened his eyes, Louisiana was eyeing the bottle of perfume he had in his hand before stashing it in his breast pocket. There was gunfire coming a couple yards ahead, the masking brush hid the shooters in a tropical entanglement. Frog pulled his attention out from within himself and looked at the two others, waiting for one to say something. Louisiana walked towards the gunshots, three more shots rang out, this time they were closer.
“Aren’t you just the special little caterpillar turned butterfly with your origin story, good for fucking you.”
“Quiet!” whispered Dallas
His eyes were pasted to a pathway in the clearing up ahead. The trio could hear footsteps moving swiftly over the land. The three all looked at each other as if to say “prepare for what’s coming”
                   “Tôi nghĩ rằng tôi đã nghe thấy một cái gì đó ở phía trước” said a distinct voice in Vietnamese
 
                   The three men split up, Dallas took the right, Frog the left, and Lou the center. The three men pressed on slowly towards the sounds, guns drawn, iron sights aimed down the barrel.
 
                   “ai đó đang ở phía trước” whispered a Vietnamese voice up ahead
 
               There they were, just a few yards ahead; Frog could see Vietcong approaching them, wading through the jungles brush. Dallas caught eyes with Lou and motioned for him to circle around, to flank them. Frog watched as Dallas gave instructions, as he turned to look at them and give signal, he had fallen face first into a pile of tangled vines. The enemies ahead heard the sound and began firing in that direction.
 
                   “Bắn! Giết chúng” yelled a voice that came just yards away from Dallas
                   Dallas got up to swing to the right of his position so he could get a better look, the enemies were at his one, Lou at his ten, and Frog at his four. Gunshots rang out; Frog started firing at his twelve. Lou was making a wide flank around the sounds of the enemy gunfire.
                    Moments after positioning himself, Dallas was exposed. Dallas heard a sound behind him and his eyes darted to the location. The enemy had a soldier coming up from the rear, flanking them.
 
                   “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” yelled a Vietcong soldier as he rushed Dallas
 
                   The Vietcong thrust a bayonet deep into Dallas’s breast plate, crushing his chest, and causing him to gurgle blood in his mouth as he lay on the ground. The soldier stood over him, a look of drugged rage pulsing through his foreign body as he watched Dallas struggle to breath. Lou saw this happen from a distance; he found a clearing in the brush that gave perfect eyesight into their position. Lou had a visual on the advancing forces, and he could now see that the clearing was harder to look out than in, the Vietnamese soldiers knew their exact positioning from the start.
 
                   “Froglglrrr, tgo yrogur elevghn” gurgled Dallas as he lay on the ground clutching his chest
                  
                   The flanking enemy soldier was advancing on Frog. The Vietcong’s motions seemed inhumane, his faced warped in a shadow that consumed his soul. The Vietcong had a visual on Frog and he rushed forward toward his position, bayonet raised, and a look of pure madness twinkling in his bloodshot eyes.
 
                   “thunk, thunk, thunk”
 
                   Bullets were whizzing in the air beside Frogs head, he crouched down in fear.
 
                   “bzzzzzzoot, bzzzot”
 
                   The bullets slammed into a rushing Vietcong soldier, his body catching each shot, pushing it forwards as the momentum from his running propelled him. His body fell limp as he slid forward, his bayonet just kissing the top of Frog’s boot. A look of horror was stricken across his face, and he froze in a panic.
                   “Clipclipclip”
                   “Thunk”
 
                   A soldier in front of Lou kissed a bullet from the back if his head, thrusting him forward. There were 2 Vietcong troops left, Louisiana had a clear shot on one of them, and he took it.
 
                   “Slug, slug, slug”
 
                   Bullets from his M-60 whirled out of their barrel and burrowed their way into the spine of the visible soldier. Blood sprayed in a red mist out of the front of his chest, covering his face in red as he fell into the red stained air in front of him.

                  
                   Frog stood up, made visual contact with the final soldier, and he charged knife in hand. The Vietcong paused where he stood, a look of crazed patience lined every smooth crease on his face .The enemy soldier was fifteen feet ahead of him, just beyond the clearing, just a few strides length out of the land the Americans held, but why had he stopped moving?  Louisiana did not have a line of sight on the soldier, and began to press inward, eyes fixed on a location of the sounds up ahead. Frog was less than ten feet from the insurgent, when his eyes met the soldier eyes, and each paused. The soldier lowered his gun and stood stoically staring into Frog’s eyes. Thoughts began to race through Frog's mind. A belief dawned on him that maybe this soldier was done for; I mean they had just killed their entire fleet in a matter of minutes thought Frog to himself.
                  
                   “GET DOWN ON THE FUCKING GROUND. WE’VE GOT YOU FROM BOTH SIDES YOU FILTHY GOOK” yelled Lou as he gained ground and watched the soldier and Frog lock eyes.
                  
                   Zeroed in on the soldier, Frog watched as a look of peace drifted over the enemies face. Frog began to further wonder to himself, the face painted across this soldiers face was not that of malevolence, but something amicable. The Vietcong dropped his weapon and held his hairs in the air, eyes stilled locked with Frog, his face getting more peaceful with each passing moment.
 
                   “What does this mean? Is he surrendering? Has this zipperhead realized he’s outnumbered? Or has he seen enough just now that he wants peace?” thought Frog as he paused, eyes fixed on the soldiers arms raised above his head.
 
                   “LOU! This guy is surrendering, let’s tie him up! We don’t need to kill him, he’s stopped dead in front of me, and he dropped his gun too!”
 
                   The Vietcong dropped to his knees, arms outstretched he said, “Mỹ ngu ngốc có một cái bẫy trong fornt của bạn!”
 
                   Lou watched as the soldier surrendered to Frog. Frog stepped four feet out of the clearing and into the brush; the soldier remained stationary on his knees, arms outstretched. Whatever he was saying, he stopped as Frog pushed forward.  Suddenly the ground from beneath him caved in and he fell into an eight foot pit lined this sharpened stakes. It was a punji trap waiting for him just outside of the brush, a trap the Vietcong soldier knew was there. A punji trap was that of a breakaway flooring that was home to around twenty some wooden stakes, all sharpened to a deadly point. In an instant, just before he was impaled, Frog knew why the soldier had stopped moving. Frog lay limply in the center of a booby trap. He coughed up blood, his arms and legs glued, he was victim to the stakes below, he yelled out in a n incoherent gurgled voice “Ohglrrggrgle”
 
                   “Whoosh, Woosh”
 
                   Lou shot in the direction of Frog’s gurgling, his sound getting weaker and weaker as his body slid further down onto the stakes, body weight working against him.
                  
                   “Thunk, thunk, thunk”
                                     
                   The Vietcong soldier stole the bullets from the air, each shot barreling through his chest. His body slumped over; his bullet holes were leaking blood as he lay motionless on the ground. Louisiana rushed over to Frog, he was dying. Lou watched as blood spilled out of his mouth, his face twitching, and his body convulsing. Lou pushed his M-60 to the side and pulled out his Colt M1911A1. He took aim at Frog’s head, and pulled the trigger, killing Frog as he lay trapped in the punji pit. Lou watched as Frog’s body went limp, and then looked up at Dallas who lay wounded on the ground. Walking over towards Dallas, he saw that his wound was much more than just a stab to the chest. The Vietcong must have laced the tip of his bayonet with some sort of poison or acidic property. Dallas’s shirt was torn down the center near the entry wound. It looked like he had been stabbed directly in the chest, and then had the bayonet pulled down to his groin. The area surrounding the wound was bloodshot and veins looked like they were gasping for air. Dallas’s lay there slowly dying. Lou took aim at his head, and shot him directly between the eyes.
                  
                   “May your next life be kinder than this” said Louisiana
 
                   Lou took out his perfume bottle from his breast pocket and sprayed his gun with three puffs. The smell overpowered his senses, a strong scent of fermented soil and beets bled into the air. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention, a sound came rustling from behind him. Lou turned and saw the flanking enemy soldier he shot previously; he was hiding in the brush just beyond Dallas’s now lifeless body. The Vietcong soldier lunged at him, knife in hand, and a PCP fueled look in his eyes. Lou was stabbed in the throat. Blood leaked out of the wound as the soldier pulled the knife back and proceeded to thrust in into his stomach, twirling the knife into knots as he punctured his belly. Lou fell to the ground clutching the stab wound in his neck. The perfume bottle fell by his side, rolling out of his palm as he hit the ground. The Vietcong saw the bottle and quickly grabbed it, knife and hands still covered in blood. Holding the bottle in the air the soldier observed it; he then opened the cap and let a few puffs fly out into the air. His nose reeled in excitment as the smell flirted with his senses, his eyes began to dilate and he yelled in a primal fit of raw emotion.


“những gì một lối thoát lộn xộn có thể làm” yelled the soldier
 
         

         The hairs on the back of the soldier’s neck stood up in a salute, something was coming. A flood of fire rained down from the sky, fighter jets from above were dropping napalm over the jungle where this skirmish had just occurred. Flames ripped through the surrounding area, engulfing everything in a gasoline scented rain of liquid fire. The enemy soldier was burnt alive, his skin crippling up into seared flesh. The bottle dropped from his hand and rolled across the ground as everything was lit to a blaze. The half man half goat on the bottle moved for a split second, smiling at the blaze surrounding his bottle. He mouthed the words “Panic” and then ceased all motion. The flames consumed the jungle for hundreds of yards surrounding. After several hours the blaze from the napalm was extinguished and all that remained was a smoldering jungle, and a small perfume bottle; it was as pristine a condition as ever. The bottle began to shake violently; the cap sprung off of it, and out came a large cloud of perfumed smoke. The sounds of all those who just died in its presence rang out. Moaning men clambered to speak through the haze, but all that came out was an incoherent sentence,
 
“What a mess an exit can make”
                  
                   A strong gust of wind blew through the ashen ruins. The cloud from the perfume bottle was whisked away, it carried with it ashes of all the fallen men surrounding it.