Tracking Blood: Prologue
A Bleeders Story
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February, 1991
Kuwait
Private First Class William Sharpe hit the ground running.
As one of twenty-two soldiers deployed in the blistering desert, charging toward a rocky expanse teeming with threats, he should have been grumbling. The men around him poured with sweat as their boots sank into the shifting sand, flies swarming over their gritty skin. They clenched their jaws, refraining from swatting at the pests while keeping their trigger fingers ready. Even their Lieutenant, a seasoned warrior with tours in the toughest theaters of war, sounded irritated as he urged them forward into the harsh landscape.
But not PFC Sharpe. Only three months into serving his country, he had waited his entire life for this moment. He’d been a Young Marine for the three years leading up to high school graduation, at which time he aged out with an honorable discharge, holding at the time the rank of Sergeant Major. It was the highest honor attainable in the Young Marines, and it allowed him to enlist in the military with the rank of Private First Class, skipping over Private entirely.
He made his mother proud the day he left for service, and continued to do so with every step he took into that desert. He could still picture his mother standing in the front door of their home, a brick house at the top of a stony path, watching him as he headed to the bus that would take him to basic training. He must have mentioned that image a hundred times back at camp. Even Lieutenant Brett told him to shut up about it, though he could tell the image appealed to the man’s longing for home.
As they advanced across the sand, the Lieutenant stopped them every few feet to check for signs of enemy. Sharpe was on edge, yet he knew he was exactly where he was supposed to be: an M16A in his hands, a target in mind, and his brothers at his sides. The howling wind helped to cover up the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his neck.
At the Lieutenant’s order they came to a stop at a the foot of rocky outcropping. They remained on high alert while Sergeant Fern approached Lieutenant Brett to discuss their next move. The rest of the men kept look-out, eyes peeled and heads on a swivel.
“Looks like it’s almost that time,” Private LaPointe whispered, patting his supply bag. LaPointe had a thin mustache that made him look like the villain in some old cartoon. Sharpe checked that his own bag was still at his side. Inside was the same blister pack of pills every Marine in the platoon had been issued for the mission. Armatol, the experimental antidote to chemical agents they might come across in the hot zone. Armatol was proof to Sharpe that the U.S. military cared about the safety of their men, that they wanted them to succeed and get back to their wives. Or in his case, girlfriend.
“It better at least give us a decent high,” Lance Corporal Mack chimed in. How he had made rank Sharpe didn’t understand. He was usually too concerned with digging up a good time to pay much attention to the mission.
LaPointe scoffed. “Shit, I just hope it doesn’t kill us.”
“Why would it kill us?” Sharpe asked. He was becoming annoyed with the borderline treasonous comments.
“I don’t know how this stuff works, I just know I don’t trust doctors. If there’s really anthrax out there, no needle’s gonna save us.”
“You took the tetanus shot, right? Yellow Fever? It’s the same thing.”
Private Jackson, a skinny black Marine, leaned in. “Relax, boys. Have a little trust in your fellow man.”
LaPointe nodded. “So long as they’re not Kuwaiti, right?”
Jackson shook his head with the same calm, confident smile he always wore. “Open your heart, LaPointe. It’s warm out here.”
Sharpe noticed Fern and Brett had finished talking. “Quiet, all of you,” he hissed. Sergeant Fern motioned for everyone to pair up and move onto the outcropping. They all fell into position like clockwork. Sharpe found himself teamed with LaPointe, which was fine by him. LaPointe was a bit of a smart-ass, sure, but he was a damn good Marine, and Sharpe would be honored to watch his back.
Eventually, they reached a clearing. Ahead of them was a long stretch of solid ground. The Lieutenant dropped popped his dose of Armatol, and everyone followed suit. First Sharpe kept watch while LaPointe took his arm then LaPointe watched as Sharpe did the same.
The large pills barely slid down his dry throat. A few of the men complained, but Sharpe didn’t mind. He’d seen the pictures of men dying from anthrax. The effects it had on men and women who came into contact with the chemical was brutal, even for warfare.
The Sergeant signaled them forward. They crossed the open ground with buzzing veins, ready to seek out their target: a stronghold supporting enemy forces. Sharpe was eager to prove himself to his Lieutenant. He pounded the ground hard to keep pace, falling in just behind the man so he could show him how he deserved to be Lance Corporal as much as Mack- if not more-so.
Something seized in Sharpe’s chest. It was a sudden jolt of pain, like someone had reached through his ribcage, grabbed a hold of his heart and squeezed it with every bit of strength they had.
Was this a heart attack? He was too young for that, too healthy. It had to be the Armatol. Something was wrong with it. A tainted batch, maybe. He came to a stop as a feeling like bees swarming inside his skull overtook his thoughts. It was so sudden, so intense that he fell to his knees and clawed at his head.
His brain was on fire. If he could peel the skin from his face to let the pain out, he would do it without a second thought. Beyond the roar inside his head, he could hear muted screams all around him; the anguished cries of the other Marines as they shared his pain.
He crawled inside himself, hiding in the corners of his mind. He pictured himself in Suzie’s bed, the two of them naked in the sunlight that filtered through her white lace curtains. They lay with their arms tangled, sharing a pillow, their faces almost touching in the afternoon’s warmth.
“It has to be a small church,” she whispered. “A white one.”
“Anything you want,” he promised, and her face softened. When she looked at him like that, she was just like an angel.
“But don’t worry about the ring. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. It doesn’t have to be anything, as long as it’s you and me.”
He smiled. “Suzie Whitman, I will buy you the nicest ring I can find, with the biggest diamond that anyone’s ever seen.” She laughed, and he felt it in his chest. “Just as soon as I get back,” he added, then watched her face change to worry. “Hey. I am coming back.”
“Of course you are. I don’t doubt it for a second.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
She bit her lip. “I was watching it on TV last night. I’m just scared you’ll…”
“Get hurt? Me? With you waiting for me back home, I’ll be the strongest guy out there.” He jumped out of bed and posed like a bodybuilder, naked as the day he was born. He flexed his muscles. “The Kuwaitis won’t know what him ‘em.” She laughed again and pulled him back into bed. He kissed her on her lips. “Don’t worry about me,” he said softer. “With you on my mind, I’ll be invincible.”
Sharpe opened his eyes. He was still on his knees, but the pain was gone. The swarm inside his skull had receded to a whisper. More than that, he felt strong. Power ran in his veins like electricity through a live wire, and he felt like he could take on anything. Anyone. His skin picked up tiny vibrations in the air. He smelled oil and gunpowder, sand, details he’d never been aware of before.
He was a new man. A better man.
There were others around him, men with faces he couldn’t quite recollect. Armed strangers. Ten feet to his right, he spotted a man with a thin mustache with a rifle at his feet.
He looked like a threat to Sharpe. A villain.
Sharpe stumbled to his feet. The other men were focused on other things. Some wandered off, others stared down at their hands. He didn’t recognize any of them, or trust them.
Sharpe looked again at the man with the thin mustache. The man still hadn’t noticed him, and yet somehow Sharpe knew in his heart that the man was his enemy.
“No,” Sharpe mumbled, shaking his head like he’d gotten water in his ear. Meanwhile, the man had picked up his rifle off the ground and was studying it.
It was almost too late. He had to die.
“No!” Sharpe shouted this time, loud enough that the man with the mustache spun in his direction. A look of pure hatred flashed across his reddened face. Sharpe resisted the strong urge to run at him and tear him apart, but he doubted the man would do the same. Adrenaline pumped through him, forcing him to choose, to act, to run, to fight.
To kill.
Before he could act on it, a large man tackled the mustached man to the ground. With hands like bear paws he held the man down and squeezed his throat shut, cutting off his air.
As Sharpe watched, the mustached man thrashed on the ground, suffocating under the crush of the bigger man’s grip. He clawed at the face of his attacker, who made no attempt to protect himself. Nails found flesh and tore it open, but still the large man squeezed, even as his face shredded and blood erupted.
With one last attempt to push the large man off, the mustached man’s arms went limp and collapsed at his sides. The large man stared down at the body, blood pouring down his face from his wounds. It showered the corpse beneath him and mixed with the dirt, turning it a deep red.
Then he turned to look at Sharpe.
“Fucking try it,” Sharpe growled. He didn’t even recognize his own voice.
Gunfire broke out, echoing across the area. A bullet whistled past Sharpe’s ear and struck the large man in the side of his head. His eyes glazed over as he fell backward over the body of the man he’d just killed.
Sharpe was angry. That was twice his kill had been stolen from him.
He looked out across the rocky field. Flashes of gunfire were coming from the distance. He didn’t care who it was or why they were shooting at him, only that they had to die.
His boots pounded the ground as he ran toward the gunfire. Other men were running next to him, some of them attacking each other as they went, others too focused on the enemy in the distance to notice anything else. Not one of them ducked or tried to avoid the gunfire. They feared no death and thought of nothing but the kill. Explosions began thundering around them, sending rocks and sand high into the sky, and all it did was make them run faster, breathe deeper, growl louder.
Something landed on the ground three feet to Sharpe’s left. It only registered in his racing mind for a moment before the detonation hit.
A flash of light and a sound louder than anything in memory enveloped him. Then the world went silent. He was only distantly aware of the ground and the sky trading places again and again before he felt the ground hit him like a runaway truck.
For a while- how long he didn’t know- everything was a blur, a watery smudge wrapped in grave silence, but then the blur began to be replaced by images of fire and teeth. The hazy sky drifted past his vision, the ground pulling along his back. He found himself being dragged through the sand and out of a crater by an unknown man.
As he looked around, slowly regaining his senses, he saw a bloody arm go past him, lying in the mud with a sharp bone sticking out the bloodied end. The pointer finger twitched at random, like it was beckoning him forward. He held up his right hand and wiggled his fingers in front of his face. All there. Then he tried the same with the left. Nothing happened.
Sharpe looked down at his left side. Shredded cloth and meat hung from the shoulder, but otherwise it was empty.
The arm was his. He reached out and grabbed it, finding it was still warm. Whoever was dragging him out of the hole must have noticed him moving. They let go and turned to face him. The face was familiar but without a name, like all the other faces he’d been seeing. The man wore a look that said he wasn’t trying to save Sharpe, but drag him out of the hole and finish killing him himself.
Sharpe wasted no time. He jumped up, nearly falling over from the dizziness that wracked his skull. Still gripping his dead arm, in one, swift motion he screamed, lunged forward and drove the bone-end into the man’s stomach.
Jagged bone pierced the man’s gut. Blood bubbled up at the corners of his mouth as a pained whimper escaped his throat. Sharpe drove the bone deeper until the life faded from the man’s eyes. Then he let go, leaving his arm and the dead man to fall as one.
He had never felt this alive in his life. Adrenaline and endorphins flooded his body. They were like fire ants crawling up and down his legs, urging them to move, run, jump, go forward and never, ever stop. Even missing an arm, he felt somehow complete. Gunshots snapped him back to reality. He spun to face them, ready to kill and kill again.
A sharp pain pierced his chest. It was even worse than the one he’d felt minutes before, like an electric shock through the heart. A man stood in his way, a thin black man with the eyes of a monster, smiling at him. Sharpe looked down.
The handle of a knife stuck out of his chest at a sharp angle. It looked like a flag that had been planted on newly discovered land. The thin black man reached out and grabbed the handle of the knife with one, bloody hand.
“Open your heart,” the man whispered through a bloody grin. He pulled the knife free in one, long motion, and a sucking sound escaped Sharpe’s chest as his legs gave out. He fell to the ground a broken doll.
With the side of his face pressed into the sand, Sharpe looked at the open ground he’d nearly crossed. On the hill above he saw the silhouette of a monster cloaked in blood. It looked like a man he’d known once, a man he would have followed into Hell itself, and just maybe did. As he watched, the thin black man licked Sharpe’s blood off the knife, then dropped it as if he no longer needed it before turning and continuing on.
Sharpe’s vision swam. A pool of words washed over his mind, perhaps something he’d heard once, as the field went dark around him and the screams of dying men fell away into nothing.
Have a little trust in your fellow man.
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