The Insurget (SFPF: Short Fiction Post Friday) (397 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 2 on 3 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack 11058 Hates Johnny (View user info) at 2006-04-14 12:28:58 EDT
Baking with the heat of the desert sun, a dervish sprung from the sand and spun its way through the outskirts of the town. It died a whimpering death in the shadow of what had once been a humble but happy home, the sand returning to the baked ground against one shattered wall.
Inside, the remains of the house smoldered. Red gouts of blood and gibbets of flesh that were once the family pet, a breedless but faithful mutt, were splattered against the refrigerator, which let out a slight tick as the last of the cool escaped it. A trail of blood slunk across the floor, leading to what once could have been a man. His left leg ended above the knee and a determined crimson trickle escaped through the half-cauterized femoral artery. His skin was crisped black, the only traces of its natural sun-browned hue visible impossibly on the backs of his hands.
He was scrabbling his way to his daughter's bedroom, but when he arrived there he would find God had been merciful indeed and allowed the artillery round to land square on the child's bed. His daughter, now nothing more than a settling red mist, never knew what was coming. Before the man died, he would find a small measure of peace in that fact, and also that she was now with her God.
In the middle of the street in front of the house, a platoon of the occupying enemy rested in the shade cast by their armored personnel carries. They were laughing, sharing water from their canteens, reloading their weapons. One soldier had a wound to his upper arm bandaged by a medic. It bled lightly, but he would live. Two canvas-wrapped corpses lay in the bay of one of the APCs, dirty combat boots showing at the end of the roll.
It had a brief and easy battle at the edge of town. After a quick barrage of machine gun fire downed the two forward scouts, and a quick retort from the soldier's rifles, the insurgents melted away into the town, leaving four of their own dead in the dust of the streets. The soldiers left them there, and counted the vultures wheeling lazily through the painfully blue sky.
The soldiers were waiting for the rest of the battalion to show, so they could finally pacify the small town that had been such a hotbed of insurgency. Down the road, dust rose from the wheels of a dozen APCs and the treads of six main battle tanks.
Near the town square, the commander of the local insurgent group waited on the roof of what had been the town's police station. He watched the main street with a pair of ancient, cracked binoculars. If this battle were like the dozen other he'd somehow managed to live through, the invaders (occupiers, if he was honest with himself) would drive right up the main road to the town square, blasting away with machine guns all the way, and firing their main guns of their tanks at any real or perceived threat.
He prayed fervently, mouthing the words of the ancient prayer silently, that the enemy would do so again. They would not be prepared for what awaited them. Every car parked on the streets in and around the town square was packed with explosives, mines, old rockets, nails, screws, ball bearings, anything that would explode or make a deadly hail of shrapnel. At the four corners of the square and in the towers of their place of worship, faithful warriors waited. They were armed with rocket launchers left over by the defeated military or stolen from the enemy. A hundred other men armed with rifles and machine guns similarly acquired waited in alleys and basements for his signal.
If all went according to God's plan, the APCs would disgorge their troops in the center of town as the tank platoon took up defensive positions. Ideally, the tank platoon would be disabled by rocket fire and the car bombs. Then, he would send in his loyal foot soldiers, his Holy Warriors, to cut down the enemy, hated and cursed by God may they ever be.
When he saw the dust cloud rising on the edge of town, the insurgent let the binoculars rest on his barrel chest. He dropped to his knees and took out the Holy Book. He read a couple of lines, and said a brief but fervent prayer to his God. He continued to kneel, holding the Book in his left hand. He brought the binoculars to his eyes as the invaders (occupiers) came into view about a half mile down Fry Boulevard, which housed what had in antebellum times been the main shopping district of Sierra Vista, Arizona.
A platoon of armor led the way. The Black Crescent Pan-Islamic flag flew proudly from the lead tank; underneath fluttered the blue battle pennant of the People's Islamic Republic of Indonesia. Speakers mounted on the side of the turret blared a tinny crackling call to prayer in Arabic. Further back down the line, he could see the maroon pennant of The Wahhabist Caliphate of Saudi Arabia flapping from the antenna of the lead APC.
Mindful of the angle of the sun and careful not to make the rookie mistake of sending a lens flash at the enemy, Steve Jenkins lay the binoculars on the cracked adobe tile of the roof. He clutched the Bible a little more tightly and kissed its worn leather cover before stuffing it into his shirt. If he was going to die, it would be with the words of his God next to his heart.
He slid down past the crown of the roof, so its front edge was between him and the enemy. He'd lived through four years of the insurgency and his instincts were sharp. He'd be able to tell by sound when the enemy was within the trap. He gripped the flare gun in a sweaty hand. It was loaded with a red flare, which would signal the detonation of the car bombs and the rocket attack. A green flare nestled in his front shirt pocket, ready to bring forth his loyal soldiers to, God willing, destroy the enemy foot troops.
The tanks ground to a halt. The invaders were within the trap.
Sounding an exultant battle prayer, Jenkins raised the flare gun and sent a small red sun into the sky.
User Reviews
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2006-04-15 16:42:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
that would be johnny damon. rat bastard that he is...
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-04-14 18:21:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
still rocks - whose Johnny again?
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2006-04-14 12:30:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
misspelling in the title is simply unacceptable