Private Vices by Andy McKell

Author:Andy McKell [McKell, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andy McKell
Published: 2022-01-27T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

My night was filled with confusion and terror, with fog and ghostly voices in the dark.

A blonde in a white gown floated through a dark castle dungeon. A spotlight hit the corner of the room, where a smiling Jimmy offered me a tumbler of my brand. I heard female screams echoing in the distance. Nearby, a low voice moaned and murmured in Spanish. Harry was there, rising from his wheelchair and smiling. From far away came the rumble of thunder.

No, not thunder: the pounding of heavy artillery.

The sound faded into the distance. The castle slipped away. Now there was a dark and silent forest, wreathed in a ghostly fog drifting through the trees. There were others moving in the murk all around me—my platoon—stepping forward in slow motion. My rifle was heavy in my arms, like a sleeping baby, ready to erupt with noise and violence. I murmured to it like I murmured to Mom, low and comforting. I spoke to it, shushed it, calmed it, calmed myself…

Too late! Everywhere the whoosh and roar of flamethrowers. Men screaming, running, erupting in flames. The acrid smell of chemicals and burning flesh.

And the screams! My God, those screams.

Rapid bursts of gunfire. The sleeping weapon in my arms jerking and exploding again and again.

And more screams—Rico!

Dear God. Rico. Right beside me, burning and screaming.

Someone, something, punching me in the chest and now it’s me screaming in pain.

I jerked upright in the bed, still half-asleep, arms flailing, fighting someone grasping at me. Friend or foe? Made no difference. I just wanted it away from me.

I snapped fully awake.

Nothing there. No one. My whole body shook.

I checked again. I was alone. In my own bed.

Just another damn nightmare.

The castle, just a twist on the usual theme: my brain tricking me, lulling me until the forest ambush and the bullet ripping through my chest. Unless it’s the other one, with me crawling through the forest mud on my hands and knees screaming from the pain in my chest and German Shepherds yapping and snarling in the dark all around me, hunting me, and my weapon gone. And then my unit swarming in and rescuing me.

Only my unit never arrives in the dream.

Slowly, the blood stopped pumping in my ears. My breathing eased. I felt the sweat cooling on my skin. Just a nightmare, I told myself. Just another nightmare. I struggled to push away the horrors into the back of my brain and flicked on the lamp to check the time. It was early, the small hours still. I had so many options. I could start my day and just grab a bottle and my smokes. I could try going back to sleep, praying I wouldn’t return to those dark places.

I never made the choice. I froze. There was something in the room. A perfume scent.

That scent.

There was too much haunting me.

“Damnation!”

I forced my mind onto another path. Mom’s talk of Verity’s nightclub times had shaken me badly—if they were accurate. Hallucination? I didn’t want to think about that again.

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