Room 275
Building #1, Second Floor (Barracks)
Task Force 38 Intelligence Area
Secure Area
Alfenwehr, Germany
1815 Hours
24 October, 2004

The room was warm when I walked in, Aine, Vandemire, Col. Sawyer, and Hernandez behind me. I'd spent the day watching what few guys were left of Task Force 38 that had not gone down to Main Post taking classes. One of them Vandemire had given on the new communication systems, and I'd watched that one closely. Hernandez had spoke about the new Predator drone imaging systems, and I'd watched silently.

I'd learned a lot.

Afterwards we'd walked through the cold, dark, and wind to the chow hall and eaten there. It had been OK, pork chops, mashed potatoes, and green beans with fruit cobbler for desert. I'd eaten two helpings, and noted that the chowhall, built to handle 150 soldiers at once, was pretty deserted with only about twenty of them coming in while we were there.

"Who put the new bed in here?" Vandemire asked, looking at the bunk bed that had replaced the single bed.

"I did, Roger," Aine said sweetly. "Although I enjoy being wrapped in Isolda's arms while we sleep, it is not as appropriate for you and Aodan to sleep in the same bed," She looked at him through her eyelashes and smiled wickedly, "Although it would bring me great pleasure to watch the two of your strain against one another in passion. Aodan is a good lover, he has brought me much pleasure over the years."

"Stop teasing, Aine," I said, sitting down in the chair. There were four chairs in my room now, "Thank you for bringing in the extra chairs."

"I also cleaned up the blood and wreckage, and purified the room as best as I can," She told me. I sniffed the air and smelled burnt moss and apple blossoms as well as a tang of something that nagged at my memory but I couldn't remember what it was.

"Is this my stuff in this wall locker with my name on it?" Hernandez asked.

"It is unseemly that you would have to travel to your room unprotected, and a kelly such as you has often used those lockers to store her possessions," Aine said, sitting on my lap sideways and putting her arms around my neck. "So I brought everyone's things to this room," She kissed the side of my neck, her lips leaving trails of stinging nettle, "I put my things in with Aodan's."

The Colonel didn't have any civilian clothing, but thanked Aine for washing and pressing his extra uniforms as well as polishing his brass. Hernandez went in the bathroom, changed, and came back out dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Aine surveyed her slowly, letting her gaze linger on the other woman's breasts and hips until Hernandez snapped at her to stop it. Aine laughed at them and then slithered out of my arms to play with the stereo.

"You seem nervous," Colonel Sawyer said.

"They opened the dining hall," I shrugged, standing up and walking to the window. The street lamps at the side of the road were on, almost four feet of snow on the sides of the road, over the cars, and on the lawn. Once again the wind had swept the road clear, leaving just slightly icy black ribbon through the snow.

"And?" Hernandez asked.

"You guys work with snake eaters a lot?" I asked, staring at the road.

"Yeah," They all three said at once. Aine snickered.

"They always like they were today?" I asked.

I'd sat in the classroom and saw a ton of high-stress activity that we'd learned to watch out for on Alfenwehr. Pen chewing and tapping, foot tapping, over-reaction to minor stimuli, hyper-alertness, gum popping, shit like that.

I'd seen two of them get in a fight that looked more like a wrestling match than an actual fight over one bumping into the other and the bumpee shoving the bumper off them. Two men, both Senior NCO's, tackling each other and going to the ground wrestling to get chokeholds.

Everyone had looked at me like I was the freak when I forced them apart by kicking them both repeatedly in the ribs till they rolled off each other. Of course, I had kicked them each in the face to stun them to keep them from coming up at me.

I'd learned that during 2/19th.

"Yeah, why?" Hernandez asked.

"No reason," I said. I looked up at the motorpool and noticed the lights were on. I let my gaze sweep across the fence before I suddenly stopped, squinting. I put one hand on the glass to keep the light behind me from turning it into a mirror and peered through the glass.

"What fucking moron put guards in the guard towers up there?" I asked, turning around.

"Umm, I don't know," Colonel Sawyer said.

I  turned back and looked out the window. It looked like fog climbing up, wisps floating on the road, puddling on the tarmac, and suddenly covering it.

"Find out, get them fucking out of there," I snapped, watching the fog rise up.

"Why?" Hernandez walked up, nudging in next to me, and peering out the window. "Is that fog?"

"No, clouds," I warned, "Clouds are rising, probably raining on main post, meaning it's gonna get bad out there."

"I'm on it," Colonel Sawyer said, standing up.

"I'll go with you," Vandemire said. When the Colonel looked at him he waved at me, "Hey, our consultant said not to go anywhere alone, to go in twos and threes, so you ain't going alone."

"Thank you, Specialist," Colonel Sawyer said, heading for the door.

"Tell them they don't have long, the temp will drop fast, the wind will pick up, and visibility will be down to zero. Tell them to pull them back into the motor pool building, get one of the portable heaters, and fall back down to the secure items area and plug in the heater," I snapped. The Colonel paused for a minute and I continued, "They try to come back, they'll end up lost and confused within five minutes, maybe dead in fifteen, depending on how bad the wind picks up."

"These men are all mountain trained," Hernandez said, going back to sit back down in the chair.

"Fine, don't listen to me, I only lived up here for eight fucking years," I snapped, turning back to the window. Colonel Sawyer and Vandemire went out the door.

The snow on the ground was gone and the fog was halfway up the hillside on the far side of the road that led to the motorpool fence. Five more feet to the bottom motorpool. Eight feet up the fence for thirteen total. Guard towers were fifteen feet high, so call it twenty till the men in the towers couldn't see dick. I'd lose sight at them at twenty-five to thirty. At the current rate of cloud rise I'd lose sight of them

"You cannot feel it, Isolda? The rage coalescing? The hatred slowly bubbling up?" Aine asked.
Aodan speaks the truth, the time has come, the mountain is ready."

"Enough, Aine," I said, still watching out the window. "Now is not the time."

"As you wish, Corporal," She said quietly. I just nodded, watching the fog creep up.

"Shit, they aren't going to make it," I said once the fog reached the top of the sharp incline and began spilling onto the lower motorpool like water. I'd seen it before.

It was never a good sign.

"Is it that bad?" Hernandez asked.

Aine gave a mournful sigh, "Unlike the innocent fog of other places, the fog you see rising is not empty."

"Feel anything, Aine?" I asked, watching as the fog thickened. The vehicles at the motorpool were all old style forklifts, light 10 ton cranes, a few HMMTs, a handful of semi-trailers, all the heavy vehicles. The top level, separated from the lower level by an eight foot steep hill, was all the 5-tons and deuce-and-halfs, the humvees and the CUC-V's, a couple sedans, and a handful of VW vans. The lower motorpool would fill first, the fog rising to half the height of the guard tower and getting to a depth of about two feet in the upper motorpool.

Perfect for ambushes.

"No, Aodan, nothing beyond the anger of the mountain, no coalescing, no pinpoints of rage, just general anger," Aine answered.

I gave a dissatisfied grunt. I was hoping that Aine's strange abilities might give us a few seconds warning, but she had been up here nearly seven years and there was an outside, but distinct, chance that the mountain had learned in its own to counter her.

The clouds rose higher, and most of the vehicles stuck out from the fog like vehicles caught in a flood. The tires, with the exception of the two massive 100K forklifts, were completely covered.

"It's too late," I said, staring at the fog as it rose up. Air pressure made things strange. The fog was flattened here at the top and I was willing to bet that the underside of the clouds were convoluted and swollen with snow.

"Why?" Hernandez asked, moving up next to me. She cupped her hand on the window and looked out the same way I had earlier. "Wow, that fog moves fast. She whistled, "Smooth as glass. That's kind of eerie."

"Watch how fast it rises," I told her, "And watch how it slows and stops. You can a lot by the night by how the clouds react." I spotted light from the side door of the main motorpool building as the door opened. It blinked four times, telling me four men had just left the building.

"Did you see that?" I asked.

"Yeah," Hernandez said.

"Hopefully they're going to collect the guards," I said.

She stood silent next to me, and I was very aware of her warmth standing next to me. I wasn't sure when it had started to come back, that weird ability of mine to tell where someone was by their body heat. I'd noticed it after that first winter.

I could feel Aine sitting on the bed, both by her warmth and other reasons.

When the door opened behind me I looked up, letting the darkness outside react with the brightly lit room on the glass of the window to turn it into a mirror. Vandemire and the Colonel were back.

"There's something in the fog," Hernandez said.

"CQ talked to Lieutenant Colonel Carmichael, who said that the men in the guard tower have cold weather gear and will be just fine. They're supposed to be changing the guard right now. He said each shift would only pull four hours and that he'd left all the men needed for guard in the main building," Colonel Sawyer said.

I saw two small pools of brightness light up in the fog. Two groups, heading for the two corners of the lower motorpool. Two shifts, probably two men each. They had flashlights right now as they headed deeper into the lower motorpool, the gap between them widening. They would eventually have two city blocks between them. The light on the left flickered, vanished, then came back a sullen yellow glow and I knew that their flashlight was failing already.

Four corners, two men each, four shifts of four hours each to cover the darkness,  that was thirty two men right there or three shifts so that the others could get sleep for twenty-four, a whole platoon. We had been told that only a couple dozen were back, the rest on Main Post with the General. Back when I'd been stationed here motorpool guard in the towers was just like CQ, you were there all night, but we stopped guarding the motorpool in late September when the fog and sleet started. One of the reason 2/19th was so massive was just to cover the guard shifts we had to pull in garrison. So thirty two or twenty four, there had been roughly twenty in the classes, some officers to run the place, a few Senior NCO's, the people on CQ and doing daily jobs like Vandemire, gave me a rough total of 40. If so, that meant most of the men would have to be on motorpool guard.

The numbers didn't add up.

"There, did you see it, by the guys on the left," Hernandez said just before I would have brought it her attention. Something dark in the fog, moving back and forth behind them. She shivered, "It looks like how a shark moves."

"The guard, are they armed?" I asked. The guards were moving past the long row of rough terrain forklifts on their right, semi-tractors on their left.

"No, this is a green zone," The Colonel said.

"No. No it isn't," I told him.

"You know that, I know that, but Lt Col Carmichael does not," Sawyer said.

The light on the left bobbled and I knew that whoever it was was shining their flashlight around wildly. It bobbled again, then began moving faster.

I could see the dark spot, almost a stain in the fog, circle them widely.

"I think it got one of them," Hernandez said softly, her voice sick.

"No, look," I said. Another blob of light came on, moving slower, raggedly, toward the forklifts. "He's going for another guard tower." I glanced over at the one on our right. It was moving fast, doubletime. "Something spooked those two."

We watched as the lights climbed out of the fog. One guy in Tower #9, separated from the others by over a hundred yards, three in Tower #12, four in Tower #3, the guards they were replacing went down into the fog, got less than fifty meters, and quickly fell back to the guard towers again."

The fog rose higher, just a few feet below where the guards were at.

"They're unarmed, cut off from the main building," I said, turning away from the window. "They might not die, but they're fucked."

Hernandez kept looking out the window, "They're flashing their lights at the barracks."

I shrugged, going over and sitting down on the bed where Aine was patting it. I could barely walk, my foot feeling hot, itchy, and tight. She made me lean back and undid the laces on my boot, releasing my foot. I groaned in pain as I could feel my foot expand. Aine clucked at me and rolled the sock down.

The bandage was stained with blood and worse.

"There's something going on in the tower in the middle, he's shining his flashlight down into the fog," Hernandez said.

"Probably something in the dark he's trying to get a look at, either he's trying to ID it, or it's fucking with him," I said. I had to pause several time, hissing, as Aine unwrapped the gauze from around my foot, revealing a swollen wound.

She tsked at the wound, pulling her leather satchel out from under the bed.

"That looks bad, Stillwater," The Colonel said. "Seen infections like that in the Gulf, you gotta get ahead of it, McCullen."

"I am ahead of it, Colonel," She said softly. She put a worn and bloody cravat below my foot and used her sharp little thumbnail to puncture the scab. The relief of pressure felt amazing and I sighed in relief, a sigh that turned to a groan of pain as Aine began squeezing and kneading the wound.

"Ugh," Vandemire bitch as she drained the pus out of the wound. Not as much as last time, and whitish clear instead of thick yellowish-white with greenish black streaks. "Shit sinks."

Aine rubbed salve into the wound, then packed herbs and moss on the top and bottom of the wound before wrapping it up again. This time she used a bandage with lots of minute Gaelic writing to wrap it, singing softly to herself.

"That shit work?" Vandemire asked.

"I have brought back Aodan and his battle brothers and sisters from near death more than once," Aine said softly, being careful to roll my sock over the wound, "I have ways of getting a soldier back on their feet even when they've mostly passed beyond the dark veil."

"All the lights are out in the towers," Hernandez said.

"What do you think will happen, Stillwater?" The Colonel asked.

"They'll be terrorized, but maybe one of them might vanish or be injured in front of another," I told him. "Ow, goddamn it, Aine."

"Hush, Aodan, you complain like an old man who has stubbed his toes on the coffee table leg," She chided. Hernandez chuckled, turning away from the window, and saw me stick my tongue out at her. She repeated my action, crossing her eyes, and I laughed.

Aine made me lean back, opening her hand to reveal two pills, one a bright green gel cap.

Antibiotics.

"Say, Vandemire, how much porn do you find on the computers?" I asked.

"Oh, man, you really don't want to know," he told me. Hernandez laughed, "Dude, I've found everything from horse porn to goddamn toilet bondage shit."

"Um, ew," Hernandez said.

"Ugh, worse yet is some of the goddamn chat logs," Vandemire said. "Holy crap, I don't know if guys deliberately say the nastiest shit to troll any spies coming at them through IRC or whatever, but holy shit, I've seen some vile goddamn shit."

That made me laugh.

"I mean, Christ, talk about complete goddamn weirdos," He said, "I've read some of the absolute worst shit. Anyone unlucky enough to have to try to cybersex those fucking freaks probably has goddamn PTSD and entered a convent," Vandemire continued, "Hell, part of my job is to check the networks and do security penetrations, and holy shit, I've seen some goddamn vile shit."

Sawyer handed me a beer, which Aine popped open with that sharp thumbnail of hers, and I washed down the pills Aine had handed me. She handed me another of those heavy duty Percocets, and I washed it down too.

"I don't want to go to sleep, Aine," I told her as she put an extra two pillows under my foot to raise it up, which made it throb.

Aine giggled, "You need sleep, you need to fight the infection," She winked at me, "You don't want spiders or snakes coming out of that wound, do you?" I shuddered at the idea.

"That ever happen?" Hernandez asked. Aine nodded slowly, "Jesus, fuck this place."

"My sentiment exactly," I said, grinning. "Said that a lot of nights, right here in this very room."

"What's the plan now?" Sawyer asked.

"We can't help the guys in the motorpool, we don't know what's going to happen next, and we've got a whole building full of snake eaters pushing max stress levels." I said, stretching and wincing at the pain in my right shoulder. I'd damaged it in the bunker. Aine saw my wince and slid her hand under the sleeve of my t-shirt to start rubbing the joint. "I hate this part."

"What part?" Hernandez asked.

"Waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I know it's going to land right on face," I answered. "Something's going to happen, and soon."

Of course I had to say it.

And of course, someone else had to finish it.

"Like what?" Colonel asked.

The distinctive popping noise of an M-4 being fired at a distance sounded out, flatly echoing.

"Like that," I said.