DISTORTED

DISTORTED(Michael Clint Newbern) The woods were covered in dancing shadows. A strong breeze ripped through the tree limbs and muffled the sound of footsteps. Spanish moss with the assistance of the soft earth made movement through the woods very difficult. There was a bright, radiating moon somewhere beyond the intertwined tree line.

No matter how fast she ran, it never occurred to her that maybe she was running from herself. Many feet behind her, the assailant had slowed and allowed his prey to lose herself in the woods. Alone, she ran and refused to look back. She felt utterly vulnerable, fleeing deeper and deeper into the woods.

Crouching down to a knee, the predator pulled his ball cap further down his head hiding a majority of his upper facial features. His grin widened and his teeth gleamed with the radiance from the moon. Eventually, the unsuspecting female would have to find her way out of the weathered woods. There were only two directions she could go. A rusty chain link fence blocked the sides. Continuing farther into the woods would eventually run her across a short shoreline blocked on either side by piles of unclimbable gravel. He would only wait, forever if necessary.

She grew very short-winded and slowed to a walk. The blond vixen finally stopped in her path and turned to greet her chaser. No one was behind her. Unaware of her surroundings, she had run very close to the ocean across the shoreline. The moon shined down and covered her angelic complexion with light. The eighteen-year-old girl, close to complete adulthood, was a harmonic sight for any man. Her tattered clothes and a slow sweat beading on her skin made her sexier in a deep dark way. Still, she could not fathom exactly why her attacker had chased her in this direction. She cried out to him that she did not have any money and her boyfriend was knocked unconscious when the whole situation went awry. Maybe the attacker didn't even want money. How had the sleek black shadow of a man bested her muscular boyfriend?

Moments passed and the girl saw no signs of his presence in the woods. High piles of gravel blocked the exits on both sides. She would have to go back through the woods to get back to the car. Still, the crazed attacker could be waiting for her in the woods. She feared that her boyfriend would be dead by the time she reunited with him. The tree limb meeting his head had to have left a concussion.

An hour had passed before any signs the girl would come back had passed. From within the shadows of the car, he sat leaning back against the car facing opposite the woods. When he heard footsteps growing closer to his hidden position, he pulled the tactical folder from within his pants pocket. Quickly he crawled to the spot where her friend, the six-foot plus two hundred twenty five pound man lay unconscious. The blow from a near by tree limb had left him out cold. A quick slash to the unconscious boyfriend's throat left him bleeding profusely. Death would soon follow. He had ended the young athlete's life quickly and quietly. The more than perfect girl would be next. If only she hadn't run, he would not have had to waste so much of his valuable time. Now she would pay.

When she saw her boyfriend lying on the ground, she covered her muffled cry and bent down to carefully inspect his wounds. She nervously scanned her surroundings for any sign the attacker might still be in the area. As she leaned over, she saw his throat had been slashed and his breathing had ceased. From behind her, the sleek black shadow crawled out from under the SUV and clocked the girl's temple with the same thick tree limb from before. She slumped over, unconscious, to the ground.

She awoke to a great throbbing headache and dried blood had trickled down from the gash in her hairline. When whe tried to move her body, she found that she had been strapped to a large oak tree. She could not force herself away from the pressure of the cargo straps no matter how much she twisted and pulled. Her mouth was covered with duct tape and the pressure from the straps was more than she could bear. She whimpered to no avail.

The young man approached from behind the tree she was strapped ever so tightly around. His ball cap covered his eyes and brow. She could only make out his thin lips and sickly skin color. He spoke briefly, "The war is everywhere bitch. People like you and your friend don't deserve me. Society doesn't deserve my compassion!"

She whimpered loudly, but the tape muffled her cries. The young assailant grabbed her left wrist, slit it vertically, and moved on to her right. Her death was slow. He once again drew out his tactical folder and began to artistically carve a notch out of her tissue. The pain was overwhelming. She blacked out, forever.


ONE

"...And what do you hear when you sit alone at night?"
"I feel ok, uh, getting away from some of my thoughts is usually good."
"I see, I was actually hinting towards what you hear when you sit alone. Do you sometimes hear things that might be alarming to you?"
"Ok, ok, you think I might be crazy. I'm not. Really, things couldn't be better considering..."
"Considering... you have been through an ordeal that is life altering, maybe?"
"No, everyone copes differently. I didn't want all this psychobabble. Damn, talking this shit makes me crazier than if I didn't agree to this. I just want to take it all back."
"Are you not curious to see if you have the symptoms?"
"No, I'm fine."

"Can we talk about how you feel towards your family or friends?"
"This is what I will tell you: I am stable. It's the constant brainwashing that comes from people like you and the command that makes us truly believe something is wrong with all of us. How do you think you would feel if the whole damn society wanted to convince you that you had something wrong with you? Disorder, disorders are pressed on all of us. Give us pills, give us this, and give us that! We end up all f***in crazy after talking with you quack doctors! What do you want to hear? Do you really want to know that when I sit alone I hear the silence? Silence that comes after the droning noise of a toilet bowl after its been recently flushed. The swirling and swirling that causes the substance of life to be flushed away. Then comes that awkward stillness when the water finally settles in the toilet reservoir. My life is the toilet bowl, just flushed away. F***, its like it could drive you mad, and then to sit in complete silence. I'm talkin' silence like the aftermath of a nuclear winter. If I told you all of that was true, would it make you feel like you were doing your job?"

"I believe some of the things you say in reference to what you believe I want to hear has more truth in it than you would have me believe. I think we have made great progress today. If you would like, I can speak with you again. Sometimes talking can really help a troubled conscience."

"I don't think so. I feel we are done. There is nothing else I need to talk to you about. Make your report and get me back out there."


ONE, ONE

May 26, 2005

Six o'clock buzzed loudly on the alarm. Two eyes opened, one, and then the other. A hand flew across his body and pressed the snooze. Only ten more minutes would not put him too far behind schedule. The sun was just beginning to break the curvature of the earth. Soon it would slip in through the cracks of the blinds. The ten minutes of rest was not enough to comfortably pull him from the bed. Coffee greeted his stomach and fueled his body to carry out the monotony of another day. Eventually a change of pace would come along and things would be different.


May 26, 2005

Six o'clock buzzed loudly on the alarm. One eye opened and was soon followed by the other. A hand flew across his body and turned the alarm completely off. The alarm was set for no apparent reason. He didn't need to get up. His days were not filled with any real purpose. Years of rising so early had preconditioned his body to set the alarm and awaken. He pulled the sheets farther up over his lanky torso and he drifted back into sleep. Dreams began to fill his subconscious once again.

The dreams came alive in black and white. All the details came in with alarming clarity. The dream appeared so clear even through the black and white haze of a bad signal. As the signal came into his subconscious, he still remained unable to differentiate between the wars. Somewhere along the way, he had a bloody knife stored in his pocket. The SUV was parked along the roadside, abandoned from its owner. A lone man lay on his back blankly facing the sky. His eyes were closed and his throat was jaggedly torn open. Blood had soaked his crew neck shirt. The blood left a tye-dye image around the collar of the stained garment. To his right was the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on. She appeared to be asleep and strapped to a tree. Her head was slumped forward hiding her facial features. A thick cargo strap held her body firmly against the oak tree. He stepped in closer. She was a perfect ten. The kind of girl he would flirt with in bars and get rejected by time and time again. This time he would free her from her bindings and she would love her rescuer forever.

He grasped the handle of the strap on the backside of the tree. It took six cranks to loosen the strap completely. Her lifeless body slumped forward onto the ground. Immediately he ran around the tree and turned her face up to the sky. A closer inspection showed him that she was dead. A portion of her skin had been removed. It probably caused her much pain, but real pain she would never know. He examined the rest of her body. Everything appeared in tact except for the dried trail of blood tracing from her sliced wrists to the tips of her fingers. Someone had bled the girl of her life. If only he could have gotten to her earlier.

Loud sirens sounded in the distance. All he could think was that he would be blamed. As the sirens howling drew closer the scene faded to black. He awoke to find he had soiled his boxers. It was the first wet dream he had experienced in years.

A cup of coffee met his stomach with delight and refueled his body for the time being. His soiled boxers went into the clothes hamper and the cold shower tricked his body into pushing on into the empty void. Thoughts bounced sporadically within his head. Thoughts of the past, the future, and that he would need a shower curtain. The three towels he hung over the shower bar to capture the escaping water reeked of mold and previous showers. Dried blood flaked from his hands and swirled into the drain. Oblivious to his surroundings, he dazed away from the shower and was reanimated at a previous time, incognizant of the red splattered water washing down the drain.


Buildings smoked from the bombardment of heavy artillery and mortar fire. Shots sounded all around. Explosions from the freshly tossed grenades rang in his ears. Adjacent to his rooftop, a lone insurgent popped up from hiding. The enemy combatant was dressed in a traditional black robe with a black turban wrapped around his head. His skin was dark and his thick facial hair masked the expressions upon his face. He was holding an AK-47 and pointing in his direction. Behind the combatant was a brick wall blocking view of the rear scenery. Automatic weapon fire sounded to his right as he watched the enemy combatant's head burst open and gush blood down his splattered skull. The assailant slumped over the eave of the building and rested on the dirt lot below. Two of the others leaned over the building and pumped more rounds from the Berettas and M-16's into the lifeless corpse. Laughter followed. He grew pale and sick to his stomach. If not for the other's he could be dead. He had frozen and never fired back.


He came back. He turned the knobs back to the off position and stepped out of the bathtub. The fluorescent lighting illuminated his pale skin and his image bounced off the mirror and connected to his eyes. He looked horrible. Dark bags hung below his eyes and his skin was abnormally white. His dirty blond hair dripped water over his forehead and trailed down his face dripping off his chin. At one point in his life, he carried a lean chiseled frame. Now, he was still lean, but the definition had long vanished. Nightmares and reality had diminished his once sturdy body.

Anger befriended and clouded his thoughts as he peered deeper into the mirror. What had gone wrong? Why couldn't he just have his life back? All of these questions circled his mind. He slammed his fist into the mirror to block the sight of his deteriorated image. The glass shattered and his hands were lacerated with shards of the mirror. The anger intensified and he punched the broken mirror with his healthy hand. The fragments of the shattered mirror ripped this hand open in the same manner.


TWO

"So nice to see you trying to help yourself. What changed your mind?"
"I don't, know... I, I punched the mirror in my bathroom. My hands were cut a little."
"Do you think that maybe your subconscious is telling you to get help?"
"No, I just get a little angered sometimes. Happens to everyone."
"It seems you might be on a path of self-destruction. What happened just before you decided to hit the mirror?"
"Nothing. I stepped out of the shower, looked in the mirror and decided to break it."
"Come now, something must have drove you to do such a rash thing."
"F***, I don't know! Why do you ask me so many questions?"
"I have to ask you questions to get answers. That is how this works."
"I need answers, not questions."
"I can't give you answers without you answering my questions."
"I don't even know if this is real. I am out of here. I knew this was a waste of time."
"Here, at least take this prescription and try the pills. You might find they will help."


TWO, TWO

A few couples and three small groups lined the bar drinking socially. For Thursday night, the bar served its average amount of customers. One bar tender easily served the occupants. He sat in the corner, alone, and sipped on his beer. The dim lighting relaxed him. A feeling of temporary ease soothed his nerves. His mind danced across the idea of maybe getting the prescription filled. Even though there wasn't any real reason for them, maybe it would just be a new designer drug for him.

An overly dressed for the occasion woman glanced over her man friend's shoulder and smiled at him. She was at least six feet tall and had ruby red cheeks. The long wafting skirt fastened around her waist hid her long legs. Her friend, the guy facing away from him, did not deserve such a beautiful woman. He was wearing a tight faded orange t-shirt and long dickey's shorts, dressed like a skateboarder.

He smiled back and pulled the bill of his royal blue ball cap farther down on his forehead. Her friend had not taken notice to her obvious flirting. He didn't really want to cause a scene anyway. With his last sip of beer gone, he stood and strolled towards the restroom. Two beers down and he knew it was time to break the seal.

He stood over the toilet and shook three times as he finished draining the urine. Three times and no more he thought quietly, because any more than that and I would be playing with myself in a public restroom. He bent over, pushed down on the toilet handle, listened and watched as the piss and water swirled into the plumbing. He listened until the toilet quit churning. The abrupt silence followed the humming of the refilling of the toilet reservoir. His mind fell into the silence.




Intel reports were coming over the radio constantly. The newest Intel gathered was to be on the lookout for school buses and ambulances. The enemy was using them as tools to attack the coalition. They knew the coalition was hesitant to attack medical and civilian targets. Filled with children, the school buses were a perfect cover for an attack. Ambulances and medical teams were non-combatants. They were not to be fired on, until now. Frag orders came transmitted over the Regimental Tac and gave the instructions to take out any hostile forces using ambulances or school buses as cover.

His current position was fixed along a road just outside the city limits. His team had set up security behind the aggressing Line Company. They were on a full on assault for terrain control of the bridge leading into the city. A lone school bus filled with children came driving into sight in a path heading directly for them. The bus appeared to be moving very fast, almost as if running from the barrage of heavy artillery within the city limits. The Commanding Officer transmitted an order over the radio for the front lines to fire upon the advancing school bus.

He never saw any signs that the bus had hostile intent, nor was there any shots fired towards his comrades. The front lines fired everything they had at the oncoming school bus. The projectiles consisted of everything from 5.56 rounds, 7.62, .50 Cal., and 40MM Grenades. The bus swerved off track, slid sideways, and rolled. The firing continued until all movement ceased from within the bus. When all grew silent, his vehicle punched out over the combat engineers hasty bridge to assess the damage.

What he saw horrified him. The bus was leaking blood from all of the mutilated corpses of children. Limbs and other body parts were scattered in its remains. Nothing made it out alive from the destruction of coalition forces. Upon further inspections, it was determined that the casualties did not have any weapons or bombs aboard and that they were all civilian. High fives were passed from the firing coalition. This was the worst call his leadership had made, yet.



The silence ended. He was standing directly above the couple he had seen in the bar previously in the evening. It was late in the evening, past the witching hour, and the couple lay twisted unnaturally at his feet. The three were located alone in a field. The passing clouds covered the moon and stillness could be felt in the air. Grass clung to the bottom of his shoes. He held a screwdriver that he had grabbed from the cab of the couple's truck. Blood covered the shaft of the flat head screwdriver. The couple, contorted abnormally upon the ground, lay unanimated. Their necks bled slowly from a punctured hole created by the flat head screwdriver. Most of the fluid from their puncture wounds had seeped into the ground. He pulled the bill of his cap farther down covering his fore head, and asked himself why people couldn't be more deserving. He walked away from the crime scene and out onto the lonely highway leading back into town. He snapped out of the silence.


THREE

"I think there might be a problem."
"Did you fill the get the pills I prescribed you?"
"No. The Battalion Aid Station didn't have any left."
"Either way, I will do what I can to help you. You have got to snap out of this. This is not the place to black out."
"But I am not blacking out. It already happened."
"You're a murderer?"
"We are all murderers. What's the difference?"


THREE, THREE

He rolled over to meet a cold cinder block wall. Below him was a narrow bed hanging from the brackets mounted on the wall. The cell was small and designed for only one inhabitant. In two more weeks he was to be tried for the murder of four people.


He rolled over to meet a cold cinder block wall. Below him was a narrow bed hanging from the brackets mounted on the wall. The cell was small and designed for only one inhabitant. In two more weeks was his court martial. He would be tried for war crimes committed during the war.