Room 275
Second Floor "Far Hammerhead Hall"
2/19th SWG Barracks
2/19th Special Weapons Group Area
Secure Area, Alfenwehr
West Germany
28 October, 1987
0600

The room was still cold, but nothing new. The heat from the steam of the shower had warmed it up, even if it had covered everything with a thin layer of ice and frost. Westlin sat on the dresser, blood trickling down from the scrape on her cheek as she sat, watching us, her chin in her palm. Cromwell sat on one of the chairs, smoking a cigarette, a glass of Wild Turkey and Coke in her hand. She had a large knot at the corner of her jaw, marking where I had reset her dislocated jaw. She'd screamed, but that was all right.

...there is no shame in honest tears or pain filled screams, son...

I'd used two pencils, broken in half, to splint her fingers that she had broken, stitched up her thumb where she had gashed it when she had stabbed those men in the hallway to death.

I had gone into the hallway and checked.

The bodies were gone. Just blood remained.

"Any plan, Cromwell?" I asked her. I reached up and shifted the field dressing she had wound around my head, using the thick gauze pad to cover my left eye.

She looked up suddenly, almost as if she had forgotten I was there. Her blue eyes were dark, haunted by pain and trauma. She stared at me for a long moment, as if she had forgotten how to speak. I didn't interrupt her, just took a long drink off of my Wild Turkey and Orange Crush.

"No," She said, shaking her head. "I just wanted to try to survive, me and the preggos both."

"You armed them with the weapons you found here, right?" I asked.

The lizard, still slightly angry at me wresting control of my body from him, hissed angrily while running my options.

She nodded again. "Everything I could find, then I had to leave."

That got a grin from me. "Good move, there, running. You did the right thing. You got a danger away from the remaining non-combatants as expediently as possible. Out of no good choices, you took the best one."

"Don't do that," She said, shuddering. "I'm still trying to get used to the fact you aren't going to hunt me for sport and then rape me to death."

I shrugged, "Yeah, sorry about that. I wasn't really in charge, you know?"

She nodded at that. "I know, it's just..." her voice trailed off and she shuddered again.

"Post combat drop," I told her. "Drink. It'll help."

She nodded, taking a long drink, pulling down almost half of it. She wiped her mouth and looked at me. "You... you have a plan?"

I smiled at her. "I'm coming up with one." I told her honestly. "Follow my chain of logic here."

She nodded slowly, taking another drink.

"We have groups. Two in the barracks that we have engaged forces from. You believe one or both groups have engaged in cannibalism to survive. One group at the dispensary, one group at the motor pool that was formerly part of the group holing up in the supply area, and the last at the chow hall in possession of the food." She nodded again at that. "Our combat assets include the two of us as an offensive force. The two men with the pregnant women are chapters, neither with combat experience, and we have ten pregnant women."

Again she nodded. I could see her brain start to work. Good. Military training was slotting inbetween trauma and necessity.

"We have limited weaponry, we are outnumbered, with assets that must be protected at all costs," I finished, leaning back and lighting another cigarette. I handed it to Cromwell as she nodded.

"Like that's ever stopped you," Westlin said, grinning. Her teeth were bloody.

"When you put it that way, it sounds hopeless," She said as I lit another.

I laughed at that, and she looked at me like I'd suddenly grown a second head. I held up my hand to forestall any questions until I finished laughing. "Cromwell, this is fairly easy."

"How so, she asked," Frowning.

"I'm experienced at these conditions. I know this barracks and the Group Area like the back of my hand. I've made it my business to know about every single thing. I know how to open the War Fighter Tunnels, I can move through the area in a blizzard if I have to."

Now she was thinking as her eyes narrowed and the frown eased. "You've got a plan?"

I nodded. "We're going to make contact with the other groups, find out if we can end this peacefully. If we have to, we'll kill anyone who stands against us. They'll have cabin fever or worse. The mountain will have twisted them up, made them homicidal. We'll try to get them to surrender, see reason, but if they won't..." I let my words trail off.

"We kill them," She sighed, a sad and forlorn sound, "Fratricide."

The word had a final sound to it.

I nodded.

She wrung her hands, "Killing fellow soldiers. I don't know, I mean, it goes against everything," Tears started flowing again, squeezing out of her swollen eye. I'd cut the bruise, an old boxer's trick that Bomber and Nancy had done for me before. I just nodded, letting her reason it out. "If we ignore them, leave them on their own, it's only October. We don't know how long until the roads can be cleared."

"It'll be war, if it isn't now," I told her.

"Alfenwehr destroys us," She said softly. "It gather us, twists us, warps us, sets us against one another," She wiped her eyes, "It devours us."

I nodded at that.

"How did you do it? That winter with Lieutenant Groves? How did you handle killing our own?" She asked softly.

Memories of that fight through the barracks. Of killing each other in the dark and cold. Of how hot blood mingled with snow and steamed in the dark.

"They left us no choice," I told her. "We would have sat at the motor pool till spring, but they came at us through the War Fighter Tunnels."

We were silent for a long moment.

"Can we retreat to the War Fighter Tunnels, wait it out? Call for extraction and the MP's to handle the problem?" She asked. She shifted uncomfortably, and I knew it was the road rash-like scabs on her back under the bandages I'd put there.

I shrugged. This was the moment of truth. "We can. We can pull back, contact command, try to ride it out in the War Fighter Tunnels, let them survive the dark and cold they brought on themselves till they can clear the roads and arrest the survivors."

She nodded at that. Westlin laughed a bubbly laugh, frothy blood running from out of her mouth and down her chin.

"Tell her the rest, Ant," Westlin burbled.

I dropped the bomb.

"But they raped you, brutalized you, basically killed me. Do you want to let them fend for themselves, or do you want to take revenge?" I asked. "Revenge for what they did to you. Teach them that you can't rape one of us and get away with us. Hold them down and carve their heart out and offer it to Aine's dark gods?"

I could see it in her eyes. The madness of Alfenwehr. The burning desire to slaughter them, to build an altar out of their skulls, to coat herself in blood and laugh with the maniacal dark comedy of it all.

"I'm down with either one," I told her simply. "This is..." I took a moment to think about what exactly it was.

"Normal," Cromwell said, staring at me. "You thought it would be different this time, that's why they were able to catch you like they did."

I nodded. "Yeah. Alfenwehr showed me different. The more things change..."

"...the more they stay the same," Cromwell said. She shuddered. "No offense, Sergeant," she started, then shut her mouth, pressing her hand to the side of her jaw.

"You don't want to be like me," I finished. She nodded, looking ashamed of herself. I shrugged. "You said I was dead, or at least half-dead," I touched my right shoulder, where I'd been stabbed. "I'm contaminated, one of the living dead pushed his finger into me, left behind something dark and cold," I shrugged again, "If you want revenge, I'm down with that."

I smiled at her and she flinched. "We can kill each other in the dark and cold, screaming in rage as we stab and shoot each other. Blood spray and screams, Cromwell," I held up my hands, "If you want revenge, I'm down."

She shook her head and I felt that dangerous precipice fall away from me as she took away any excuse I had for going on a rampage. Westlin made a disappointed noise.

Part of me wanted to do it. Not for any of the reasons I had told her. Because I wanted to prove that I had what it took again. That no matter what, I could take on whatever the mountain threw at me.

And to grab that cock sucker who had ambushed me and rip his goddamn beating heart out of his fucking chest and hold it up in front of his eyes so it was the last thing he saw.

...TELL ME HOW TO BRING MY COUSIN BACK TO LIFE...

To once again prove I was built to fight and survive no matter what.

"No."

Her voice was flat and pulled me away from dark thoughts of letting loose where Nancy couldn't see me, where Bomber couldn't stop me, where there was nothing but who was better at killing. Thoughts of being in the dark and cold where the steel meets bone and the screaming and blood live.

I looked at her and she flinched.

"No, let's just pull back to the War Fighter Tunnels, establish communication with command, and get orders," She said.

The proper military way to things.

Cromwell had a lot to learn about Alfenwehr.

The question was, would she learn before the mountain killed her?

All of that went through my brain while I nodded at her, smiling, ignoring the way she flinched again at my smile.

"We'll move the two chapters and the preggos down to the War Fighter entrance, go inside, lock the door after us," I smiled at her. "Tell you what, Cromwell, since my ability to command may have been seriously compromised by being dead, you're in charge, Corporal."

She frowned, hearing the trap but not seeing it yet. "What's wrong?"

I tapped the side of my head. "I'm having intrusive thoughts."

Westlin laughed from where she was sitting on the dresser, a sour apple lollipop in her mouth and wearing her favorite blue denim skirt and Van Halen T-shirt, watching all of it.

I turned and stuck my tongue out at Westlin, who just laughed.

When I looked back at Cromwell she was staring at me.

"You're hallucinating," She accused.

I grinned, and she managed to cover her flinch for the most part. "Yup."

"Who?" She asked.

"Me," Westlin said.

"Westlin, medic before you," I told her. "Got gutshot out at Atlas."

She nodded. "I've heard the story," She told me.

"I'm always here," Westlin laughed. "Three one seven for life and death."

"So, yeah, you might say I'm compromised," I told her, grinning.

She sighed, dropped her cigarette in the empty Coke can, and then scrubbed her face with her hands.

"So it's up to me?" She asked. I nodded and she sighed, straightening her shoulders up and staring at me. "You can open the War Fighter Tunnels?"

"Yup. Know where the red cards are," I told her.

She stood up, brushing off her pantlegs in the cold.

"It ain't gonna be done standing around," She said, and I could hear a slight Texas accent in the way she said it.

She looked at me. "Lead the way, Ant."

I stood up, grabbing a field jacket and tossing it to her before grabbing mine. We walked to the door and right as I reached for the door handle she grabbed my arm.

Raising one eyebrow I turned to look at her. It surprised me that she'd thought of that, when she'd missed how many options I'd left out.

"You aren't planning to shut me in the War Fighter Tunnels while you go all Rambo on them?" She asked, squeezing my biceps.

I chuckled at that, reaching out and bumping my knuckles on the welt on her jaw. She flinched and glared at me. "Not now, Cromwell."

"Promise that you're not going to run off and leave me holding the bag, Sergeant" She insisted.

I sighed.

"Fine, Cromwell, we'll do it your way."

She squared her shoulders. "Lead the way. Let's go get red card, we'll fire up the War Fighter Tunnels so that they warm up, then take the preggos into the War Fighter Tunnels and try to establish communications," she told me.

I shook my head, staring at her. "Tactically wrong. We open that door, they'll hear it. It's loud as fuck," she wrinkled her nose primly at me but I kept talking, "It sounds like an elephant's back breaking. We'll have only a few seconds to get the preggos in and start to shut the door."

She nodded slowly at that. "We get the preggos, lead them to the War Fighter Tunnels, get inside, and call it good till they can rescue us."

I grinned and she flinched again. "Promise me you're not going to lock the door on us inside."

I stared at her. "Promise no matter what goes down, you'll get the preggos in there. Two of them are in their ninth month, they're going to need you or they and their babies die."

She nodded slowly, not liking it, but agreeing.

"Promise me you won't leave us," She said again.

"Only if you promise to make the preggos a priority over everyone and everything," I shot back.

She nodded. Well, nobody asked you to like what you had to do. I turned around and opened the door, that chunk of black ice in my shoulder spreading its ache down my arm and into my chest.

...it won't work out that way, Cromwell. you don't know it, but it's going to end the way it started...

...in darkness, cold, and blood...

She followed me into the hallway.

She couldn't feel it. I could. Maybe it was the fact I had been half-dead not long ago. Maybe it was all the blood I had spilled on the mountain. Maybe it was the chunk of ice aching deep in my shoulder.

She couldn't feel the mountain's anticipation.

She didn't know.

But I knew, as sure as I knew Cromwell was following me, how it would end.

Like it always did.

Like it always had.

Like it always would.

Alfenwehr would make animals out of us, and it would end the only way it could.

In blood.