There Will Be Killing by John Hart

Author:John Hart
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: FICTION/War & Military
Publisher: Story Plant, The
Published: 2014-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

*

J.D. showed up Friday, butt-crack-of-dawn, at the villa. At this point he had basically dropped the ruse of coming in for rounds at the hospital and only slid in an appearance if there was something case-specific. Gregg thought it might be good news that no new reports of Ghost Soldier mangling had surfaced; their beds were just constantly occupied by damaged and deranged soldiers brought in from the field under typical circumstances.

Gregg found himself thinking about his thinking again: What did it say about his own mental health when he considered damaged and deranged young men a welcome reprieve and classified war in terms of “typical circumstances?”

He wished to God he had never walked through the door of that morgue. Sleep had once been a respite from the unrelenting suffering he witnessed daily; now he dreaded crossing the line from consciousness into the unguarded territory of sleep. The first nightmare shook him, but he passed it off as a singular event. The next night when he woke himself up shouting, he let it go too, nothing chronic to worry about.

The body needed rest but the brain needed sleep and the deprivation of it, now four nights in a row, was not pretty.

“What happened to you?” The alarm on J.D.’s usually inscrutable features made Gregg wonder if he looked even worse than the mirror had indicated before following the aroma of freshly brewed coffee into the kitchen.

“None of your damn business.” Gregg knew he sounded grumpy because he was grumpy, and he completely did not care. J.D., on the other hand, apparently cared enough to pour a cup from the percolator he was manning—and fix it just right with a splash of milk and two sugars before handing it to Gregg, whose mother would have been horrified that instead of a polite “thank you” he snapped, “How do you know how I take my coffee?”

“Because I pay attention.” J.D. tapped the top button of Gregg’s mis-buttoned shirt. “You may want to try this again. And tie your boot strings while you’re at it.”

Gregg refrained from muttering “screw you” as he clomped over to the kitchen table, plunked down the mug harder than intended, and bent down to tie his boots. He was so damn tired he was ready to crawl on top of the table and go to sleep right there.

J.D. pulled up a chair next to him and tapped his fingertips together. “So, how bad are the nightmares?”

Gregg shrugged. “Bad enough.”

“Can you take something to help?”

“I’m thinking about it.” And he had. What Gregg hadn’t expected was his own resistance to signing up for the very medication he was so liberal in dispensing. Not that he prescribed the Rxs., that end of the job went to the MDs, but as for why he was so reluctant to dip into the medicine cabinet himself…

On some level some part of him had decided that it would be like admitting the war had won. And he did not want this miserable mess of a war to beat Gregg Kelly.

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