Beyond the Barracks

In the darkness they walked, rifles in their grasp, fear in their eyes, but ready for anything. Their camouflaged uniforms were ragged, torn, and bloody, like they had been in combat for many hours, but by no means did they give you the impression that they were fatigued. They were as alert and responsive as ever.

Within the rapture of the woods, the two young, soon to be marines, listened to every possible clamor, any hint of an unfamiliar sound coming out from the stillness and the seemingly peacefulness of the night.

The younger looking of the two, with blood covering his entire right arm, led the way through the thick brush. Though recruit Danbury would never say it in words, especially not to his partner in arms, he was hesitant, unsure of himself. Terrified.

Behind him, his comrade recruit Demarco appeared to be about twenty-two, and carried his weight of two hundred and thirty pounds well. He looked like a corrigible, seasoned military man on the hunt for the enemy, only there was an uneasiness in him, in his eyes.

Coming up to an opening in the trees, they stopped in their tracks.

“I don’t hear anything.” The younger recruit tilted his head to listen more attentively.

“Oh my God. They can’t all be… can they?” He looked him in the eyes.

The distinct sound of something moving in still water caught their attention. They nodded at each other, agreeing that this was their signal. It was time to move.

Before Danbury knew what was going on, the butt of an M16A2 military-issue rifle rose slowly over the head of his partner, who had been at the rear. The holder of the rifle ascended up from behind him, silent like a ninja, with his chiseled, hardened features, and used both arms to crack it straight down over the top of his head. Demarco fell flat on his face, instantly unconscious, as Danbury turned his head around in disbelief.

This man, wearing a USMC drill instructor cover, lowered his rifle until it was aiming at the back of his head. His uniform was sopping wet from swamp water. “I’d drop that weapon if I were you, kid,” he said, without looking up at him.

He threw down his rifle without hesitation.

“You didn’t really think you could stop me now, did you?” he said to Demarco, who was lying on the ground, barely moving.

He pulled the trigger, blasting sound into the quiet of the night. The shot bore into the same place that had already began bleeding from the former blow, only much deeper into his brain. Fluids spat out onto the marines’ face, like someone had shot him with a blood-filled Super Soaker squirt gun.

Recruit Danbury took off in the direction of the aperture in the woods.

“Where are you going? Never leave your wounded behind, recruit!” He grabbed the lifeless body of recruit Demarco by the collar of his shirt, dragging him with one hand, and followed after him. “This night has a destiny. Death is your only escape from this place. That’s right, join your fellow recruits in the swamps of Parris Island.”

He knew, as soon as he saw the murky waters, that his way home was to the right and down the now visible path, leading to serenity.

Another splash in the swamp kept him from leaving. He knew that there must be someone still alive; maybe it was one of his friends. He couldn’t just run. He needed a rifle.

Halfway into the mud, inches from the onset of the swamp, he saw one. Knowing that a killer would arrive and claim his next victim at any moment, he dove for it, grabbed it as he hit the ground, and rolled over and onto his feet again.

Standing ten feet from him was the drill instructor turned murderer, his rifle in his left hand pointing downward. Opening his right hand, he released his dead, with a swift thud to the dirt.

“You came to the right place, recruit. This is where it all ends. Are you ready to meet your fate?” he asked with his deep, gritty voice.

The sound of someone trying to come up for air came from behind the recruit, and then more splashing. Frantic cries, gurgling, and choking echoed in the night as a broken melody of agony.

Time was precious. In seconds, those few aspiring marines that were still alive would drown, unless Danbury could find it in himself to fire, killing a man for the first time in his eighteen years. But he knew he had to do it. If ever there was the right time to take another man’s life, this was it.

“No sergeant, I think it’s your time to die,” he said, and pulled the trigger. Empty. The original owner of the rifle must have run out of ammo.

He had no words left to say, with escape no longer being an option.

The drill instructor began walking toward him, slowly raising his weapon. “No, I insist. You first.”