Captain Woolworth was still screaming, her hands pressed to her face, as Monkey moved quickly down the hallway, John letting go of my arm and running ahead of him to unlock the door of our room. I was shuffling along behind everyone, looking at my left forearm. The uniform sleeve was tattered and torn, reduced to rags held together by strings. My forearm was covered in thin crisscrossed lines about a half-inch from one another. It was bleeding pretty freely, coating my forearm in blood that dripped from my hand to the floor. I could feel the blood running down the left side of my face.

The lizard shuddered from the images on the screen, images of what had been in Room 221, and hit the button to purge them from memory. Another slap of a button and Plexiglass rumbled down, separating me from everything else.

small still silent

Nagle and Stokes had hurried through the double doors, heading toward the room, following Will and Bomber.

Red walked slowly next to me, looking at me oddly.

"You all right, Stillwater?" He asked, his voice carefully neutral.

I nodded.

"You're bleeding pretty good," he told me.

"Facial cuts and scalp cuts bleed like hell," I answered, remembering the first aid lessons from Basic Training.

"Yes. Yes they do," Red said as we pushed through the doors at the halfway point of Hammerhead Hall. The drops of blood were steady, leading to my room, bright and glittering in the harsh light of the hallway's florescent lights. A couple times Red boots or mine scuffed and smeared the crimson dots across the waxed floor.

"There's something bad in that room, isn't there?" Red asked, still keeping his tone carefully neutral.

"Yeah," I pulled a magazine out of my pocket and reloaded the .45, tucking the empty in my left thigh cargo pocket.

"What?" He asked.

"I don't know," I half-lied, my brain shuddering away from the memories of that room.

"Mm-hmm," Red's noise was doubtful, but he didn't push it as I tucked the pistol into the nylon holster secured at the small of my back. It had been long enough that the pistol was cool.

I followed him into my room, shutting the door. I walked around the corner in time to see Nancy slit the Captain's shirt up the middle to expose her chest.

Captain Woolworth had deep slashes across the slopes of her breasts, her bra was slashed, and I could see how her nipple had been bisected by the sharp blade that had savaged her flesh. The lizard counted sixteen slashes across her breasts, done wildly, but the pattern telling the lizard that the attacker had been right handed and facing her.

"Red, get Aine," Nagle snapped, touching the wounds. "I don't like this discoloration."

"I am here, Nancy Nagle," Aine said softly, moving past me from the empty half-hallway behind me. She held her little bag in her hands, the bead-work shimmering in the light from the window. She was dressed in hand-made moccasins, her gingham dress with red sash, and her hair was loose, falling down her back in cascades of dark red ringlets.

Bomber was holding down Woolworth's wrists as Stokes finished the stitches on one slash across her face and moved to the next. William rubbing her legs as she slowly kicked and moved them to mitigate the pain in her face and chest.

"You're going to keep your eyes," Stokes said, smiling. "Give Momma a  few more minutes and I'll have all these slashes closed," Stokes started stitching against and Captain Woolworth screamed loudly, biting down hard on the standard issue belt jammed in her mouth.

I moved past them, over to the desk, and pulled open the top drawer. I grabbed a small pile of MRE salt packs and sat down in the chair, ignoring what was going on but making sure I could see the door.

"I will bandage these, draw the cold and vileness from them," Aine said softly. "Once you have closed the wounds. She was attacked by something evil."

small still silent

"Yeah, we saw," Nancy said, then shuddered. She grabbed the pack of butterfly stitches and a cravat. "Help me, McCullen."

I poured the salt out of several packs and into my hand, watching the door.

A woman screamed out in the hallway, her screams matching then mocking Captain Woolworth's.

I dumped the salt on my arm and rubbed it into the thin cuts across my forearm.

"Dammit, Tony, don't do that," Will snapped. "Mom's told you not to do that."

Nagle looked up. "What's he doing?"

"Rubbing salt into cuts to clot them up," Will said accusingly.

"Ant, don't do that," Nancy snapped, looking back at where she was closing the slashes on Woolworth's breast. "Stokes, her nipple is bisected, what do I do?"

"Put a butterfly on each side. Nipples heal quick," She said, snipping the thread and moving onto the next slash. "You're doing good, honey, let Momma stokes fix this one by your eye."

I dumped more salt in my hand and rubbed it into the cuts on my forearm, ignoring Nancy and Will.

"Dammit, Tony," William snapped. "Quit that."

small still silent

Red hopped up on the desk next to me, giving me an odd look as I poured more salt onto my hand and started scrubbing it into the wound.

"Red, stop him," Will said. "He's not supposed to do that."

Red just shrugged. "Everyone's got quirks, man. Had a Staff Sergeant in The 'Nam that used to pay chubbo hookers to sit on his face and fart," he said as he lit a cigarette.

Everyone stopped and looked at him. Even Captain Woolworth stopped screaming and tried to look at Red without moving her head.

"What?" Nagle said. "What?"

Red just shrugged. "Everyone's different," he said, blowing smoke into the air. "If Stillwater wants to rub salt into his own wounds, I ain't gonna stop him 'cause it ain't that weird." He shifted to the side and farted loudly. "He'd have paid her five bucks American for that one."

Aine giggled, William started laughing, and in a moment even Captain Woolworth was laughing, her terrified pained screams forgotten. After a moment it all settled down.

"Think the lidocaine's kicking in," Doc Woolworth slurred.

Everyone went back to work as I poured more salt in my palm then pressed my hand against my cheek where the hot-wire feeling of a razor cut was on my face.

small still silent

Will just sighed.

After a moment Aine moved over to me, a roll of gauze covered in thin spidery script done in reddish ink in her hand. She set the bag and the gauze down and lifted up a little clay pot of bluish ointment. I held out my arm and she slowly covered the cauterized cuts in the ointment and then wrapped my arm with the gauze.

"These wounds are strange, Aodan, I do not know what made them," She said softly, smearing gunk on the slash on my cheek. She shook her head. "I dislike this. We are far from spring, maybe even beyond winter."

I didn't nod, just made a noise of agreement.

"You should be fine," she said, picking up her stuff. She turned to Woolworth as I grabbed Red's pack of smokes and lit myself one. When I tossed his pack and lighter back to him Stokes had moved from Captain Woolworth's face to her right breast while Nancy worked on the injured woman's left breast.

"What was in there?" Red asked again.

I shook my head. "I don't know. Something. Something bad."

He nodded. "Yup. I can see that."

Will answered without looking up. "Before I got here, right after Tony and Miranda got here, the two guys in that room murdered each other and another guy hung himself, all within a week."

"That true?" Nancy asked, glancing at Stokes.

Stokes shrugged. "Basically," she half lied.

"So it's cursed," Red guessed.

I shrugged. "Yeah."

Aine was covering Captain Woolworth's facial wounds with a thin layer of the bluish salve, singing softly to herself, her hair rustling slightly, looking as if it was moving with her motions but a closer look showing that some of the locks were shifting on their own.

"She's a weird one," Red mused.

"Yup," I confirmed.

"There's more to the story, ain't there?" Red's voice was barely audible.

"Eh," I shrugged.

...SPC Allton's body hanging from the shower curtain rod, naked, his genitals on the bottom of the shower tub, the corners of his mouth slashed open almost to his empty eye sockets, his chest carved with twisting marks that felt like they belonged in the bad parts of the Bible, cuts on his legs and arms, the blood dripping onto the floor or into the shower depending on if it was from his back or his front, the purplish black coloring indicative of strangulation missing and no greenish bloody foam around his torn apart mouth, his nose missing to reveal his sinus cavity...

...Jesus wept, Cobb whispered, the only sound aside from the dripping of blood...

"Not really," I lied.

"Your turn, Aine," Nagle said, straddling Woolworth before climbing off the bed. Aine just nodded, moving up with her salve in one hand. Nagle moved over next to me, grabbing my chin and turning my head so she could look at the bare slash on my face.

"Sometimes I wonder about you, Ant," She said, shaking her head. "Salt, really?"

"Stops the bleeding," I grunted.

"You know, that hurts most people," Nancy told me.

I just shrugged.

small still silent

"It feels tingly and warm and, well, kinda soft," Woolworth said, her voice slurred from the Lidocaine injected into her face.

"The warmth will held drive away the cold and vileness," Aine said, her voice lilting and exotic sounding.

"I believe," Woolworth whispered. We all looked at each others as she kept repeating it while Aine put salve on all the slashes.

"I hate this place," William grunted, moving to the fridge and grabbing out a beer. I held out my hands and he tossed it to me before he got one for John, then Red, then Nagle, and finally one for himself. I put mine at  the edge of the desk and smacked my palm against the cap so it popped off.

"This place sucks," Bomber agreed.

"Why we can't escape," Stokes said, the bleak tone in her voice robbing it of any humor.

"I'll go with Aine so we can let the LT know what happened to Woolworth," I said, taking a long pull off my bottle. It was crisp, cold, and good, easing the raw spot in my throat I didn't even know was there.

Everyone nodded as Aine straightened up.

"The wounds and salve need to breathe," She said, dusting off her hands. She put the salve back in her bag, using the leather thong to close it.

I stood up, rolling my shoulders.

"Let's go, McCullen," I said.

"Of course, Corporal," she said demurely.

When I closed my door she was back in uniform, her BDU's making her look like a child that had gotten into her mother's closet. Her boots were spitshined and gleamed in the light as she followed me to the Middle Stairwell.

"Male on the floor!" I called out as I pushed my way into Titty Territory. Nobody was in the hallway and AIne and I were silent as we walked to the CQ Area.

The LT was leaning on the counter, chewing on a reddish toothpick, tapping a pen against a clipboard that held a yellow legal pad. The Senator's Aide was next to him, with the two Secret Service guarding him in case any of us went crazy and jumped him. One of the NSA guys was standing with a DIA guy and one of the CIA dwonks, one of the ones who'd been with us in the tunnels, to be exact.

When I stepped up the LT heaved a sigh.

"What happened this time, Corporal?" He saked.

"What makes you think that something," The Senator's Aide started to say before he looked at me and saw my face. "Oh."

"We had an incident up at Room 221," I told him. "Doctor Woolworth went inside because she heard someone claiming they needed medical help" I guessed based on what I'd heard her say, "She was attacked, I pulled her out."

I held out my forearm and he nodded.

"We better go look at the room," He sighed.

"Sir, I don't recommend that course of action," I said.

The LT looked at me oddly. "Are you all right, Corporal?"

I nodded. "Fine, sir."

He shook his head. "Still, I need to at least look at the room."

"I'll accompany you, Lieutenant," The aide, Ledbetter, said.

"If you insist," I shrugged. "I'll come with you."

"I should go, just in case," Aine smiled.

"Another incident?" The CIA guy asked.

"Doctor Woolworth was attacked inside Room 221. We are going up to look at the scene," Lieutenant Wright said.

"We'll go," The CIA guy said.

"I'll go too," The CID Major said, standing up.

dammit

"Fine. Follow me," I said, shrugging.

"Is your man all right?" The DIA guy asked as we went up the stairs.

"He's been under a lot of pressure," The LT answered.

We pushed into the hallway, the Alphabet dwonks following me.

"That's a lot of blood," Major Mallory said, with the keen observational powers I'd come to expect from CID, pointing at the trail of blood spatter that led to the double doorways.

I stopped in front of Room 221 and stared at the door.

Another layer of Plexiglass slowly rumbled into place

small still silent

"Well, let's get a look at where the incident took place," The LT said, reaching out for the door handle. I resisted the urge to yank him backwards, watching as the door opened.

The room beyond was spotless. Beyond the hallway I could see the desk, the dresser, the corner of the bed, the uncurtained window with harsh white light streaming into it. No blood, no bodies.

Aine's shriek of terror almost ruptured my eardrum. Everyone turned to look at her as she inhaled deeply and shrieked again, her eyes bulging out in fear.

Still screaming she suddenly jumped straight up, landing on the ceiling on her feet and hands. Still shrieking in terror she scuttled on all fours down the hallway, her screams piercing the ear, the tiles of the suspended ceiling falling behind her as she made a mad scramble on all fours down the hallway. The double-doors slammed open a good three feet before she reached them and she shot through them before the doors could shut on her.

When the doors cut off the sound of her shrieking I looked at everyone. They were all staring with their mouths open, except Lieutenant Wright, who had pursed his lips and frowned.

"Corporal, if you will hold onto my belt, I will shut the door," He said.

I just nodded as everyone else stared at the direction Aine had fled. I reached under his top, grabbed his belt, and held tight as he leaned forward, grabbed the door handle, and pulled the door shut.

"I am loathe to enter that room, all things considered," He said softly.

That seemed to break the spell.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Ledbetter shouted.

"DID SHE JUST RUN ACROSS THE CEILING?" The DIA guy yelled.

"HOW? WHAT? HOW THE FUCK?" The Secret Service guy bellowed.

"Holy shit," The CIA guy said softly, looking at me.

I couldn't help it.

I started laughing.