Ghost
by talespin
URL: http://www.bluecatsgraphics.com/pean/fanfics/38/

Their position had been overrun during the early morning hours. First Lieutenant Eli Glinn manned the bridge as American troops fell back, fighting and straggling their way over the sturdy wooden frame.

He had waited for nearly twenty minutes, a virtual lifetime as their tiny force had held, broken, held again. He’d been anticipating this moment for two days. A surge of adrenaline coursed through him as five men broke from the heavy cover and ran for the bridge as though Lucifer Himself was on their heels. The tall one bringing up the rear, Garza, signaled to him and Glinn took a breath to steady his nerves.

This was it, then. Just a matter of seconds, now... He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. “Get clear! Get clear!” he yelled as Garza shepherded the last soldier over the bridge. All accounted for. Glinn didn’t know all of the men but he knew the number in both special ops teams scheduled to be in the area give or take a few for casualties, and recognized the rearguard as they came up behind the last of the stragglers. Only thirteen men left? Jesus. He put the thought away. A burly young man, a sergeant that Glinn didn’t remember seeing before, was one of the last to cross before Garza and the others swept past and disappeared into the jungle beyond.

The sergeant paused when he saw Glinn waving him frantically on with his other hand on the detonator, and his eyes grew wider. “You can’t blow up the bridge! There’s more men over there!” he cried. Glinn set his teeth in response. He could hear sporadic gunfire in the near distance, fraying at his nerves. It was getting closer. It sounded like it was all around them.

“All registered operatives have cleared the area!” he shouted back. But...was it possible? He was sweating, sweating more than this damn jungle had ever made him sweat before.

“I’m telling you, there’s more men...” The sergeant stank of fear and conviction as he loomed closer.

Glinn pushed the man away. He hated fear. He despised uncertainty. The bridge had to go. “Do you want the enemy to cross that bridge, Sergeant?! We’re all going to die if they get over here, do you understand? We’re outnumbered!” Glinn could have added We’re outnumbered 20 to 1, but Glinn didn’t make estimates. He dealt in absolutes, and allowed for overages. That was all there was to a successful operation. But his voice sounded unnaturally shrill in his own ears, panicked. More like 50 to 1 he thought. He reached for the trigger device again and the sergeant was suddenly grappling with him, trying to pull him away from the detonator.

His voice was hoarse with desperation. “You can’t do this...” Glinn spun away from him and slammed the switch home.

The bridge tore free from its moorings, erupting in a glorious WHUMPH of earth, tons of sodden, pulverized soil and timber mixed with rocks rising in an impossible, graceful surge, fifty feet into the air. Glinn fell to his hands as the shock wave hit him and he got up again at once. Perfect, surgical destruction. It was beautiful. The main body of the bridge sagged in a crippled arc and disappeared from view, disintegrating as it fell.

The sergeant was still screaming but Glinn could barely hear what he was saying, his hearing momentarily deadened by the explosion. Particles of mud pattered down all around like heavy rain, pelting and shredding the leaves as they fell. Glinn grinned, allowing himself a moment of pleased self-congratulation for a job well-planned and executed. He had personally set every one of the charges for this operation last night. Give a man enough dynamite and he can move the world, he thought with satisfaction.

As if summoned by the destruction men began emerging out of the deep cover on the other side of the ruined bridge. Glinn felt a new surge of satisfaction. Just in time. But we’re safe. Safe, you commie bastards. Come and get us now, assholes. He felt like laughing.

The sergeant suddenly gave a wordless howl of anguish and inexplicably began running toward the smoking bridge, into the hazardous rain of mud and debris, waving his arms and shouting. Glinn frowned. Idiot. Then his eyes narrowed. What the...

“Go back! Run, Gordon! Don’t stop!” The voice from the other side of the gorge was joltingly American, unmistakably Southern, distorted but strong. The young sergeant skidded to a halt, visibly fighting the command and screaming in inarticulate grief. “Go back!” The curt order came again, with more urgency.

Through the haze of wreckage that continued to settle out of the air Glinn saw the man in the lead who had shouted across to the sergeant, an unusually fair-skinned, fair-haired young man under any circumstances, he was almost unearthly pale in this torrid climate. He was pack-carrying an injured man across his shoulders as the others struggled up behind him, wounded, most of them supporting one another and appearing to be on their last legs. They stopped at the smoking rim of the gorge, some scrabbling and yelling at its edge. Several looked back the way they had come, panic and hopelessness on their trapped faces.

Our guys. Glinn realized he had run forward, following the frantic sergeant. He felt a fog of unreality settle over him, a surreal sense of failure that funneled all of his senses with acute clarity onto the pale, paint and grime-streaked face of the youth who remained standing. It was a face that etched itself into his brain; if he lived to be eighty he knew that face, those eyes would never leave him. For a moment he saw shock, horror that matched his own, then it was mastered, replaced by a peculiar, almost wistful expression of resignation, acceptance of fate.

He was cold all over. Ghosts, his grandmother had once told him, did that to you. Eli Glinn didn’t believe in ghosts, but it was true. He had killed these men. He held the man’s eyes for a timeless moment longer.

I had no choice. There was no time! he pled silently.

The man retained his gaze, then gave a slight, deliberate nod and turned away, almost as if he had heard. Glinn watched in astonishment as he eased his burden to the ground with ironic gentleness in the midst of the chaos and filth, laid his rifle down beside the man then turned, moving in a swift yet unhurried manner to stand in front of the rest of the wounded men, between them and the boiling sea of hostile faces and guns now charging from the jungle and moving to pin the small band, trapping them against the shattered rim of the chasm.

The enemy soldiers in the lead hung back as the small clearing filled in behind them with more men hot on the chase, bristling with weapons. They stopped, nonplussed at the unexpected sight of an unarmed man facing them with hands open and spread slightly to each side, standing before them as calmly as if welcoming guests to a party. As if he were going to invite them to sit down to tea. Glinn shook his head in amazement at the tableau, utterly affected by the bizarre standoff. The uncertainty in the silent and milling ranks broke abruptly as one man obviously in command pushed through the others and strode forward, angrily shouting an order. The others followed at once, converging in a surging pack around the helpless men. A rifle butt swung and the ghost crumpled, disappearing as more blows fell and the small group was overrun.

Glinn turned away, sickened by the sight of the enemy swarming over the wounded men, hiding them from view like ants on a carcass.

There was more yelling, pointing in Glinn’s direction, and a shot rang out, hissing past his ear.

“Get out! Get out! Run!” The sergeant was coming back toward him, drawing him out of his daze. Tears streaked his dirty face as he passed Glinn.

Run?

Bullets snicked through the air in their direction; one caught him in the shoulder, white hot, and spun him breathless to the ground and he knew suddenly that he was going to die. He had failed. He had completed his mission, yet he had failed.

Against a descending backdrop of blackness the afterimage of the young ghost’s face still lingered in his spotting vision, refusing to let him slip into darkness. ‘Run’ it whispered. There was absolution in those intense, pale eyes. He would never forget them.

With a sob of effort he dragged himself to his feet and ran, staggering for the safety of the undergrowth beyond. Friendly hands pulled him in and drew him to safety, shouts of encouragement shutting out the sounds issuing from the far bank of the destroyed bridge behind him.



Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.

- Michael Drayton