Chapter Two
Both platoons returned around seven that evening. I opened the dispensary and treated nearly a third of them for everything from sunburns to fairly serious cuts that they hadn't reported during the sweep.
Spec.4 Collier was the worst of them; he'd only been with us for about a week, seemed to think he had something to prove, and hadn't reported either a sliced-open calf or the fact that he'd been about to keel over from sunstroke. I handed him a glass of shock solution, which he tasted and then promptly refused to drink.
"That's some really nas-ty shit, Sarge."
"You'll drink it or you'll meet the XO," I said. "Then you'll wind up pulling shit details for a week and drinking it anyway, so just drink it now and get it over with. I've got six more from 2nd platoon to check out."
"You wouldn't really report me for something this chickenshit, would you?"
"Collier, you barely made it through the day. If you'd fallen on your face, a couple of guys would have been tied up with hauling your ass out. Let yourself go like this again and I'll have somebody dose you with this stuff twice a day on general principles for as long as you're with us."
He stalled a moment too long. When I have wounded to patch, I don't fuck around with halfwits. Striding to the door, I called the nearest three-striper -- Andrews -- over and pointed to Collier.
"Make sure he drinks that," I said. "I'll come back in a few minutes to clean up his leg. I'd like you to stick around for that, too."
Obscuring most of the doorway as he stepped into the dispensary, Andrews grinned maliciously at Collier and said, "You got it, Sarge."
Andrews was a huge, imposing presence in the little room. It seemed to me that Collier paled a bit as he approached. I worked on someone's arm, then on someone else's back where a branch had opened a gash. When I turned back to Collier the glass was empty.
He tried to tough it out as he watched me clean out the gash on his leg, but not long after I started the job I hit something solid within the muscle mass. It was deep, but it moved, so removal wasn't going to present too much of a problem.
"Maybe a frag," I said. "Maybe a bit of rock. You're lucky it didn't hit you in the ass, Collier. You really don't need any brain damage."
Collier started a snide response, then made a retching sound and ran for the latrine. Andrews looked at me and shook his head.
"Whatta jerk," he said, heading for the door. "I'll get him."
"Thanks, Andrews."
I checked over a few more cuts and scrapes and some sunburns, then picked two of the least damaged patients to sweep and mop while I put things away and readied another glass of shockjuice for Collier.
When Andrews brought him back to the dispensary I had Collier sit on the gurney. Andrews kept a grip on him while I worked on his leg. Collier protested the necessity of that, but we ignored him and I dug out the half-inch bit of stone I discovered in the wound. When I wordlessly showed the bloody bit of rock to Collier, he passed out.
That made things lots easier. I finished cleaning out the wound, packed it to drain and stitched it, then bandaged it. Taking advantage of the fact that he was unconscious, I checked to see if he was allergic to penicillin, then zapped him with a syringe.
At my nod Andrews lightly patted Collier's face. Collier sat up in a rather dazed fashion, felt the bandage on his leg and looked at it, then stared blankly at the bit of stone in the bowl as he idly rubbed his left arm.
"Here you go," I said, handing him the second glass of shock solution. "Make it all go away, hero."
Collier made a face and whined, "Aww, man..!"
"You shouldn't have thrown up the first one. Shut up and drink it or I'll have Andrews, here, sit on you while I pour it down your throat."
Glaring at me like an angry five-year-old, Collier made a production of forcing himself to drink the shockjuice, then thrust the empty glass at me.
"That's a good little soldier," I said. "Now you just sit there for a few minutes and let everything soak in."
He rubbed his arm again and frowned. "Did you stick me with a needle?"
"Oh, yeah. Sure did, Collier. Penicillin." I held up the half-empty penicillin bottle and said, "A whole bunch of it, just to be sure. Used the biggest needle I could find, too, just so it would hurt a little more."
Glancing at the small plastic syringe on the tray, Collier said, "Bullshit."
I washed the glass and the bit of rock in the sink, then tossed the pebble to Collier. He stared at the half-inch bit of Vietnamese rock for a moment and seemed about to pass out again as Andrews laughed.
He slapped Collier's shoulder as he said, "Well, there ya go, Collier. Your very first Purple Heart. Many happy returns."
Collier looked at Andrews as if he was out of his mind. Andrews laughed again.
"I had to dig kind of deep for that souvenir," I said, "So you're on light duty for three days. Gimme a minute and I'll give you a profile slip to cover it. Be here in the morning for a bandage change."
By the time I'd locked up it was nearly nine. I stepped outside into the darkness of a clear, moonless night. The stars shone like tiny diamonds and the air seemed cleaner, but that may only have been because it was cooler. A presence like my own, that of a vampire, filled the shadows behind me.
"Hi, GI," came a soft, feminine whisper.
Turning to face the whisperer, I saw Marian Hartley's aura glowing a soft white and gold from the shadows beside the dispensary and smiled at her.
"Hi, yourself, milady," I whispered back.
"Are you all finished? Ready to go?"
"Very ready," I said, stepping into the shadows and merging with them.
We lifted into the night sky and headed north toward the village.
"Glad you could make it," I said.
"Oh, no problem," said Marian. "I make all the shift schedules for the ward."
"Is Anna coming, too?"
"She can't tonight." With a giggle, Marian added, "Like I said, I make the shift schedules."
"Tacky."
"Oh, not really. We take turns with you, you know. This is my week to visit."
There was movement below. I pointed and Marian nodded. We descended into the trees to find two VC threading their way along a faint trail. Marian unsheathed her personal blade as I pulled my bayonet. Although we both carried .45 pistols, we'd never used them for hunting. They were for emergencies only.
Marian's knife was a four-inch stiletto style Solingen blade with a carved bone handle. She'd told me that she'd seen it in a sporting goods store in Denver some years ago and "simply had to have it."
Apparently they didn't check officers the way they did enlisteds. When I'd left the States and again when I'd arrived here, they'd searched me and dumped my stuff out to paw through it as if they were afraid I'd try to sneak something dangerous into a frigging war zone.
Marian simply dropped down in front of her victim and drove the knife into his chest as she shoved him back against a tree hard enough to knock him unconscious.
The other guy unslung his rifle in a panic. He didn't finish the motion. My bayonet impaled his heart. I let him down easy as he faded and laid his rifle on his chest.
Snapping her collapsable aluminum cup open, Marian let her VC fill it, then let him slide to a sitting position against the tree. I took out my canteen, separated my canteen cup, and filled it from the same VC.
"You've been using a cup every time?" she asked, "It's important, Ed. We don't want to leave any trace of our virus behind, not even out here."
"Yes, mother," I said sardonically. "I've been using my sippy cup."
She snickered, then giggled softly.
Something about being infected with the vampire virus had seemed to override my innate revulsion about sipping other peoples' blood, but at first it had been quite an ordeal. My virus had clamored insanely to be fed even as I'd been totally repulsed by the idea.
Anna Corinth had helped me through my first feeding by using herself as the vessel; sipping from a baggie and sharing with me through her lustful kisses. Probably just as well. I'm a hardhead about some things. I'd have probably resisted until the virus had made me truly dangerous and careless.
To avoid discovery, we were supposed to find ways to feed that wouldn't create a local disturbance; to make our victims' injuries look war-related or even accidental. In a war zone that was no big trick, but I didn't particularly relish the idea of trying to find ways to feed surreptitiously in the civilian world.
Blood banks, sure. We had people in donation centers in every major city and some that weren't so major, as well as most of the meat packing plants. There were even some nightclubs that offered a special beverage list for special customers, but some of us preferred only fresh blood -- human or otherwise -- so there were a lot of vampires in the medical profession, particularly in fields involving hematology.
Diseases couldn't touch us in the least, but drugs and alcohol could, however briefly. Ever see the MAD magazine cartoon that featured a vampire feeding on a street bum and then staggering away? Truth. The virus eliminated drugs or booze fairly quickly, but for maybe fifteen minutes we'd be damned near as stoned as the donor had been.
'Donor.' That was our popular euphemism for 'victim'.
Yeah, well, we hardly ever drained anyone dry without good reason. Marian had told me about how she'd hunted and killed drug dealers around Denver when she'd been known as Janine Tarner.
She'd watch for them, catch them in the act of dealing just to be sure, and follow them until she could contrive a way to make it look as if one of their own had done them in. Her descriptions of several such stalkings and feedings made them sound almost like games.
When I asked her why she'd stopped, she told me about finding a Denver police badge in a victim's pocket. Yes, he'd sold drugs, but had that been part of a cover?
I told her I thought that was unlikely; undercover cops know they may be searched on the job and don't carry their shields. More likely it had been stolen, especially if nobody'd reported a dead or missing cop.
Marian had shrugged and said that it had nonetheless put a different light on things and that she'd begun to wonder if all of her victims had been justifiable.
Then along came the Vietnam war. Janine Tarner had seen a chance to swap lives and identities. Anna Corinth had helped her get documents to become Marian Hartley and sign up for nursing school under an Army education program.
After her second cupful from the VC, Marian said, "Let's go down to the stream."
"Right with you, milady."
I knew what she had in mind. We lifted and drifted, letting the slight night wind carry us along. After a heavy feeding we tend to feel a bit lethargic for a little while and a fairly severe case of the hornies kicks in.
Tonight's feed had been large, indeed, and Marian had used me for hours after other such feedings before heading back to Dong Tam and '3rd Surge', as most people called the Army's 3rd Surgical and Evac hospital. I'd be lucky to get two hours of sleep before the Army dragged me out of my bunk.
"Oh, well," I thought with a happy little grin.
Marian settled by the stream and stared into the water for a few moments, then rinsed her cup and knife and put them in her purse. I cleaned my own cup and bayonet and put them away, then sat down beside her.
"Sometimes," she said quietly as she removed her pistol belt, "I hate what we are. What we have to do."
Putting an arm around her, I said, "Don't sweat it. Those guys were setting traps for our guys. You work in the ER. You've seen the results."
Nodding slightly she said, "Yeah. I know." Leaning to speak in a confidential tone, she said, "But getting so damned horny afterward... That still bugs me after all these years. It's like we aren't in control of our own lives and bodies."
I shrugged. "Who really is? But I figure things could be a lot worse. You could be ugly as sin; instead you're a beauty queen. I can live with that."
She gave me a small smile. "Nice try, but I'm still bugged."
"Maybe you're trying too hard, ma'am. Things are as they are and they aren't all that bad, really. And anyway, what's the alternative to things as they are?"
"Yeah, I know. Don't worry; these moods don't last long."
There in the moonlight we heard and felt the water as it flowed by and watched the auras of small things that lived in and around the stream go about their lives. Like tiny neon signs they flickered and flashed apparently aimlessly until something brightly purple and maybe six inches long flashed from beneath a rock and returned in the blink of an eye.
Marian startled with a soft "Aah!" and yanked her bare feet out of the water, then giggled and put them back with a sigh.
"Old habits," she said with a wry grin.
Maybe her mood had changed enough by then or maybe the startlement and minor embarrassment had changed it. Whatever. Her aura morphed slightly to more gold than white and I knew what that meant. I kissed her long and gently and she warmly returned it.
When we broke the kiss she said, "These damned auras make things pretty obvious, don't they?"
"Yup. But I figure mine reflected yours fairly closely, so we're probably even."
Giggling again, she said, "Yes. It did."
Kissing her again, I said, "Good. No point in being out of synch with each other, right?"
"No. Definitely not." With a sigh, she lay back on the streambank and dramatically said, "You may take me now, sir."
"Oh, thank you, milady. Shall I try to be gentle?"
This time she laughed. "I won't, so why should you?"
What did the Viet locals think of the sounds in the jungle that night? Who knows; maybe some old legends were dusted off or new legends begun.
We parted company above my base around two; she to return to 3rd Surge and me to dump the enemy rifles in the river, then to try to blend with my bunk for a few hours.
I landed beside the dispensary and looked around. A guy was walking toward the latrines and another one crossed the compound to enter the commo bunker. I stepped from the shadows and headed for my own bunker at a slow amble.
A voice I recognized as Andrews asked, "Where the hell have you been, Sarge?" as I passed the mess tent.
"Lots of places," I said. "Texas, Colorado, California..."
He didn't laugh as he stepped out of the mess tent. The black band with CQ on it let me know that he was on a Charge of Quarters duty shift.
"Someone was lookin' for you earlier," he said, "Winters."
"The Commo NCO? Why?"
"You got a message of some kind around ten. Came in a helo drop from brigade. We looked all over for you. Where were you?"
I gave him an exasperated sigh and said, "Hiding from people with messages, man. The last time I got one it was bad news from Uncle Sam."
"Oh." As if something had dawned on him, he said somewhat more firmly, "Oh. Yeah. Okay, I can dig that."
"Cool," I said, moving on. "Have room service deliver my breakfast in bed around ten, willya?"
"What about the message? They don't just up and drop stuff on us at night like that unless it's some bad-assed kind of important."
Shrugging, I said, "They didn't see fit to stop the war over it, so it'll probably be there when I get up."
"Hey, it could be a family emergency, man."
Sighing, I said, "I still couldn't get out of here until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, so there's no point in losing any sleep over it, is there? Good night, Andrews."
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