The first law of war is to preserve ourselves and destroy the enemy.

I moved over to the boxes, resting my hands on them. "There are twelve meals per box. I've got one hundred boxes in this room, that's normally four hundred days of food for me. As it is, there are three of us, which means it drops to about one hundred and thirty three days worth the food," I told them, staring at them.

"Three per day. You eat  the whole box before you move to the next box. No trading meals, you eat every thing in the MRE unless you are allergic to it," I said. "I've got protein bars, four hundred total, twenty boxes of them, in that wall locker, vitamin packs, one thousand total, that give us three hundred days of vitamins."

The Private nodded, listening closely.

"Water's our biggest problem. It's been the largest problem of every army since the Bible, and one I couldn't beat. That required another option," I pointed at the stock of wire-mesh coffee filters on the shelf, the plastic edge of  it carved with runes I'd used a woodburner to mark.

"Coffee filters?" The Specialist scoffed.

"Would you prefer I ran it through moss?" I snapped at him. His hand went to the side of his face and I nodded. "What do you think I've been doing with my off time, reading porn and beating my meat?" I snorted in amusement. "I've said it before, I'll say it again, I survived three years here, I knew what I had to do if I was going to survive."

I pointed at the Specialist. "You keep talking all that shit about being a Staff Sergeant before you got caught jamming your dick in a thirteen year old, but how much fucking preparation did you do in case everything goes sideways?"

He shook his head, glaring at me.

"How about in the week you had leading up to coming up here?" I asked.

"Hey, man, what kind of preparation could we have done?" The Private asked.

"You both got here right before REFORGER 88. The Specialist got here while I was prisoner of the Stasi. He was given the choice between Leavenworth and here, and like a moron, he took 2/19th thinking it would be normal," I said. "The Sergeant, he raped a seventeen year old private he got drunk in the private's own barracks room. Fucked him straight in his ass. Not the first time either. He was given the choice of Leavenworth or here. He took here, and paid for it. You went home on leave between AIT and being sent here, stole a car. They gave you the choice between a Dishonorable Discharge and being sent here," I told them both. I shook my head. "You should have taken the Dishonorable."

"You looked in my fucking records?" The Specialist asked.

"Your ASVAB score was 72, your GT score is 103, you failed PLDC the first time. Married twice, divorced twice. One restraining order. Suspected of domestic abuse. Both ex-wives had children from previous marriages, you were suspected of sexually abusing your step-daughters. Your favorite music was disco but recently you started listening to East Coast hiphop," I shrugged. "Favorite MRE is ham slices, favorite color is orange, you have three VHS tapes of Traci Lords porns, which tells me a lot about you. According to your platoon sergeant in South Korea, you're lazy, you had a habit of trying to blame the lower enlisted for your mistakes, and had a bar to reenlistment before you fucked a kid," I snapped at him. "Like I said, in the week before we came up here, I made preparations."

Both of them stared at me.

"Now, what do you know about me?" I asked them. I picked up the beer and took a swig, staring at them.

"Everyone acts like you're hot shit," The Specialist sneered. "Everyone warned me to watch myself up here with you, that you're some kind of badass who doesn't care who dies as long as you survive."

The Private swallowed and shrugged. "Heard you got captured by the KGB or some shit. You and half your crew got tortured, some guy lost his arm, a female ended paralyzed from the waist down."

I nodded. "Almost all true," I pointed at the Specialist. "Except what he said. I actually try to make sure as many people as possible survive."

I leaned back, taking a long drink off the beer.

"Bullshit. I heard you killed like a hundred fucking people last winter," The Specialist sneered. "Heard you fucking nerve gassed them then burned them down with a flame thrower."

I nodded. "Yup. Sulfuric acid based phosphene gas with a warfarin kicker from rat poison, to be exact. Flamethrower, well, that's just a standard Special Weapons means of disposal."

"Fucking monster," The Specialist spat.

The Private looked at the Specialist. "Dude, are you really antagonizing a guy who's willing to do that?"

"It's not 'dude', Private, it's Specialist."

I snorted and he glared at me. I held up my hand, shaking my head.

"Don't bother. I out rank you, I'm bigger than you, I'm meaner than you are," I laughed.

The Specialist stood up, obviously angry.

Welp, I guess we just do this now

I set my beer down, standing up. He stepped up on me and I met him, my leg brace creaking.

"Oh shit, here we go," the Private said quietly to himself, touching his nose.

"You think you're Billy fucking Badass," The Specialist said. "Think you're all tough," he glanced down, still speaking. "With that bad fucking leg."

When he looked up I slapped him. Open palm, across the right cheek. Hard enough he fell against the ground, his hand going to his bandaged cheek with a scream of pain.

The scream devolved into choking sounds when I put my boot into his gut.

"What now, tough guy?" I asked him, leaning back against the desk and picking up my beer.

He stood up, one hand on his stomach, glaring at me as I set my beer down behind me, keeping my right arm behind me. It made my shoulder ache, the surgical repair not doing well.

"Lucky you sucker punched me, you little punk," He coughed.

"Are you looking at me now?" I asked him.

He nodded.

I crashed into him, kicking his feet out from under him with my bad leg, slamming down on top of him, my left hand covering his face and slamming the back of his head against the tile. Before he could recover I straddled him, my knee brace squealing, dropping my ass hard into his gut before raising up again. His eyes were crossed as I pulled the knife out of my boot sheathe, my hand on his forehead.

His eyes cleared as I stared down at him, holding up the Gerber Mark II fighting knife. His pupils dilated and then contracted with fear. His nostrils flared and his face went even paler, his eyes focusing on the fighting knife. I switched my hand to his ear, twisting it, making his eyes water.

"Next time you step to me, I'm sawing off your goddamn ear, you child raping wife beating scumbag," I snarled into his face. "You're right. I'll do any goddamn thing to survive. I'll do whatever I have to do to maximize my chances of survival. I so much as think you're dreaming about fucking me over and I'll cut your goddamn throat and throw you out into the dark and cold."

The Private, he opened his mouth like he was going to protest, but then closed it, his hand going to his nose.

"Do you understand?" I asked.

"Yes," The Specialist said. He swallowed thickly. "I understand."

"Good," I told him, getting up. I lifted my foot, putting my knife in the sheathe again.

"How many knives are you carrying?" The Private asked.

"Not counting the throwing knife that I left in the CQ Area?" I asked. He nodded. "Five more throwing knives, two fighting knives."

I leaned back against the desk, picking up the beer, and looked down at the Specialist.

"We're going to be here until either the roads clear due to freak weather or until spring or until we all kill each other," I told him. "We're down one man. For God's sake, you saw what happened! Your face got fucking blitzed! Why do you want to take me on?"

The Specialist stared at me, his face gone suddenly blank.

"I..." he said, "I... I don't know."

I leaned down, holding my left hand out to him. He stared at it for a moment, then took it. He looked surprised when I heaved him to his feet easily. I let go of his hand and picked back up my beer, taking another drink off it.

"You hearing whispers?" I asked him seriously.

He shook his head. When I looked at the Private, he shook his head too.

"You will. We all will," I said gently. I stared at the boxes stacked in front of the window. "Every time you think one of the other two of us is the threat to you, I want you to remember what happened in the CQ Area."

I dropped the mostly empty beer bottle into the trash can.

"Think about what was on the other side of that door. Think about what happened when we hauled ass up here," I told them. "Don't let this place trick you, gentlemen. It's the enemy, not any of us."

"Big talk after you..." The Specialist started. He pinched the bridge of his nose. After a second he looked up at me. "Why do I keep getting angry so quick?"

I nodded. "Yeah. You got a temper, don't you?"

The Specialist nodded. "Yeah," he looked at his hands. "Yeah, I do."

"So do I," I admitted. I sighed. "So we're going to keep butting heads," I looked at the Private. "How about you, got a temper?"

The Private shrugged. "Where I grew up? Fight or die, man. Never thought about it."

"That's how it's gonna go at us. Aggressiveness, our tempers, our trained willingness to do violence, to kill," I told them.

"How's what going to get us?" The Specialist asked.

"That thing in the fucking stairwell!" The Private yelled. "The thing the Staff Sergeant turned into! Whatever the fuck was chasing us in the hallway!"

I nodded. "Yeah. What he said."

The Specialist shuddered, looking at the hallway that led to the door, then at the runes. He took a deep breath, held it for a second, then let it out.

"All right, Sergeant," He said, slumping slightly. He pointed at the rune on the fridge door. "What are those?"

"Old runes," I told him. "Religious symbols from my family and Hannah Lane's."

The Specialist's hand went to the side of his face and I nodded. The Private touched his arm, looked at, then looked at me.

"What... what religion?" He asked. His brain was finally working again, taking stock of his surroundings.

I shrugged. "Family religion. I added some angelic runes I got out of an old book at the post library, just in case."

"In case what?" The Specialist scoffed. He shook his head. "Sorry. I'm an atheist, knee jerk reaction."

I chuckled. "After what you saw, you're an atheist?"

His hand went to to the side of his face.

"You saw a dead guy explode into frost that shredded most of your face, shredded my forearm, and you're still an atheist?" The Private asked.

"Tough, huh?" I said, trying to keep my voice gentle. The both looked at me and nodded.

"I get it," The Private said, looking around. "If he's real, they're real, why not the Bible?"

I nodded, taking my cigarettes out and lighting one. "You haven't seen anything yet. Trust me. This is just the warmup. If it's going to come out of the gate with Tandy and whatever the fuck the Staff Sergeant was, it's going to get ugly."

They both nodded at that.

"I chose the real old sigils. I figure, the older it is, the better chance we have against our enemy," I said. "It ate the Templars for lunch, so I figure I needed Old Testament sigils, no new iconography, nothing from the New Testament. Our enemy is old. Real old. Celtic runes, blood magic stuff, that seems to work. I figured maybe some of the old angelic runes would work. Protect us a little bit from our enemy."

The Specialist frowned, then winced as the muscles on the damaged side of his face clenched. "What enemy?"

I pointed out the window. "The mountain."