Steven G. Johnson - Operation Reaper (Murphy’s War Book 2)

On my sixth fourth-day in Hell, the Devil finally figured out I was there.

I cant be sure of the day, of course. Turns out the Sun is a big help in marking the passage of time, and of course we dont have the Sun here. Just a tiny bright point, right exactly overhead, which no one can stand to look at for very long. We discourage them from trying, too. Its unnerving to see a grown man cry.

But wed been keeping track by meals, or rather, the hunger of missed meals. The smallest guy in our platoon, Martini, got elected as our human clock. Wed feed him a handful of John Wayne crackers or whatever else we had, then when he got hungry again, we figured that as six hours, one-fourth of a day. What with new arrivals from Up Above, we always had a little to eat on hand. The rest of us? Well, hunger wont kill you. Not in Hell.

The flow of new men from the land of the living slacked off after about three weeks. Maybe the battle was over. Every one of them was friendly, because in southern Poland, where wed been killed, the U.S. Army and its Polish allies were fighting an army entirely composed of vampires. Vampires dont go to Hell when they finally bite the dirt. Maybe theres someplace worse set aside for them. I dont know, but I like to think so.

We had us a little Army camp beside the Blood River, where guys of our location and mortality date tended to wind up. When we first got here, thered been goat-footed skeleton men, most with tufted tails like lions, stirring the blood with long forks and pushing down anyone who managed to get his head above the boiling fluid. Turns out, they dont fight real well against a determined team of G.I.s, so now we had six long-handled brass forks which produced heat from their tines. You couldnt turn em off or turn em down, but an hour or so out of the blood smoked off all the leftover gore, and after that they glowed a little, even in the gloom. We used em to start fires along the perimeter until we got the ditch and palisade built.

Yes, were fortifying Hell. This little corner of the fifth terrace down is property of the U.S. Army, and were keeping it.

We hadnt let any of the soup stirrers (the name was Dave Zwergbaums idea; hes got a rare gift for dark humor, even among combat veterans) escape alive, but somehow the Big Boss had got the word we were here. He sent a handful of truly impressive physical specimens, ten feet tall with massive chests, bulging thighs, massive wings, and complicated heads with faces stacked on top of faces, against us.

And by then, I was almost out of ammo.

See, most of the men showed up naked, except for a rag around their butts. Im a little different; my old man was an Elf (still is, I expect), so I dont die the same way my sons-of-Adam buddies do. I do die, dont get me wrongIm not immortal. Thats not the word for how I am. But after I die, I get back up, and climb my way back out of Hell.

I hadnt done that latelydidnt want to abandon the platoon. But when I die, I arrive in the afterlife with my whole body, hair, teeth, fingernails, and all. Plus boots, belt buckle, G.I. socks, helmet, compass, grenades (if I had any left on me, which I hadnt, this time), and most particularly my Tommy gun and Colt pistol.

I think they were the only ones Down Here for a good long while; Ive never seen any other Elves, even mutts like me, around here. Dwarves can tunnel down into Hell, so Dave, whos full-blooded from the Brooklyn Dwarf neighborhood, could have brought his own rifle and gear, too. This time, hed been caught by surprise, and anyway, death doesnt work the same way for Dwarves, either. Maybe we all have our own rules.

One of the Muscle Beach bullies, the biggest, flapped his wings and shot up over our ditchwork, dropping right inside our lines. He roared, showing several tongues, and I shot him right across the breadbasket.

He looked amazed. I shot him some more. He began to get concerned, so I shot him yet a third time, widening the hole where his belly button would be if he had one. Then he looked up from the mess Id made of his middle parts, right into my eyes, as if a little afraid. Not of what I was doing to him, but that I was daring to try and resist him at all. It was like the look you give a guy who starts raving in tongues on the subwayif hes crazy enough to do that, what else is he going to do? Better get off at the next stop.

He did.

His uppers were collapsing into his ruined lowers when the next one reared up on the thin pile of spoilthe dirt wed dug out of the ditchwhich wed thrown up in front of it. You couldnt really call it a parapet, to say nothing of that honorable title of wall.

Martini, a crystal-ball man from the old outfit, ducked left, but the demon had long arms. He grabbed Martini by the top of the head and threw him like a baseball, snapping his neck in the process.

He landed near me, and I got to him in time. You dont die instantly from a broken neck, at least, not down here.

I grabbed hold of his shoulders as he slumped, kicked my shoe-pacs heels into the ashes to brace myself, and heaved. As Death tried to suck him down into the earth, I, Mick Murphy, tried like Hell to pull him back from the brink.

Deaths got a lot of work to do, especially in a battle like this one. So I dont crow too much about occasionally beating the Reaper at life-wrestling.

I hung on, backing a step whenever I felt the suction weaken, and foot by foot wormed Martini back from the edge. His neck fell straight, againas you die in reverse, the damage to your body reverses itself, too. Otherwise, youd resurrect just to die immediately, which only made sense in Hell.

I was glad that wasnt how it worked.

Gee, Sarge! Martini said when he got his wits back. You didnt hafta do that. Ida come back pretty soon anywaybut having a broken neck was no fun, no fun at all! So, thanks.

Dont mention it, I said. You good to fight?

He rolled over, tried to stand up. Then he folded.

My legs wont work, he complained. The arm he was leaning on trembled, then dropped him.