C. E. Murphy - No Dominion - A Garrison Report

Starlight exploded out, splashing toward the sky. I got knocked off my feet an’ lay there watching as her hair drifted outta the sky and a million stars she’d eaten went back to their rightful places. When it finally ended, I sat up an’ found out I was covered in strands of hair, ‘cept they’d gone silver and brittle. They broke into snowflakes when I brushed ‘em off. Danny did the same, and we got up with somethin’ like snow angels on the ground behind us.

Him and me, we didn’t say a word going back to camp. Didn’t say a word about it later, either, and after a few years I even started wondering if Danny had been there at all, or if it’d just been me and the starlight demon alone in the Korean night.

Three times in four years wasn’t enough to see your girl in. I kept thinking how much worse it was for the fellas who had wives and kids, kids who maybe didn’t know them at all, and counted myself lucky even when I was counting down the days. Annie came to meet the ship when I came home from Korea, and did it sneaky, too: I didn’t know she was coming until I saw her on the docks, one of a hundred pretty girls waiting for their men to come home.

I stopped stock still an’ stared a while before she’d even seen me, just looking at the way her blond hair had gotten longer an’ her blue eyes were still the same. Fashions had changed too, and I guessed I knew that, but it was different seeing her in a fitted skirt an’ suit jacket insteada the full skirts an’ blousy tops she’d been wearing when I left. She looked grown-up an’ professional, an’ my heart knocked around inside of me like it was tryin’ ta get out. I hadn’t been nervous about coming home, not ‘til I saw her, but I couldn’t get my feet moving now that I had.

She finally saw me and her smile lit up bright as day at the same time she put her hand over her stomach in the same nervous way she had when I’d asked her to marry me. That made me feel enough better that I got my feet unstuck, and met her halfway when she came running. All around us guys were scooping up their girls and spinning ‘em around like they couldn’t contain themselves, and neither could I. Annie shrieked into my shoulder and kicked her feet, both of us laughing when I staggered to a stop and put her down again without quite letting go. “You didn’t say you were coming, darlin’.”

“I wanted to surprise you. A good surprise? Oh, Gary, look at you. I thought you were handsome before, but you’re all grown up now. I hardly recognized you.”

“You and me both, sweetheart. Nurse Annie.” I grinned ‘til I was fit to pop. “Congratulations, darlin’. Wish I’d been at your graduation, but at least I’ll get to see you in one of those saucy little hats.”

Annie laughed an’ ducked her face against my chest, hiding a blush. I put my arm around her shoulders, holding her close and lowering my head to breathe in the scent of her hair. “Your letters always smelled like you. Like daisies. Didn’t even know they had enough scent to linger, doll.”

“I had to look a long time to find a perfume that smelled like them. I like it better than the more cultivated flower scents.”

“Guess that’s why you like me, too.”

She rocked back so she could smile up at me. “You can’t fool me. You’re hiding cultivation under a rough exterior. I remember some of the poetry you’ve quoted me.”

“Aw, shucks, sweetheart, everybody’s gotta pass English Lit if they wanna stay on the football team. ‘sides,” I said, solemn as I could, “what kinda guy can’t call his girl the star to his wandering bark an’ still call himself worth stepping out with?”

“Most of them,” Annie said dryly, then laughed again and tucked herself up against me. “Come on. The car is waiting. I thought we could drive up the coast and I could meet your parents while you’re on leave.”

“Just the two of us? T’gether?”

“Well, I’m certainly not inviting Andy along. I like him fine, but I don’t propose to share a hotel room with him!”

I got kinda dizzy. “You proposin’ to share one with me?”

She dimpled, an’ I spent the next couple weeks in the best kinda haze I’d ever known. I hated to go away from her again, but it was better than the first time, in some ways, ‘cause the war was over. I saw some of the world, even a few places I wanted to bring Annie back to, and the day my service ended, I walked away without ever looking back.

Walked right into a big church, an’ waited there with Danny and Andy and a handful of the other guys from my unit standing up for me, while Annie came through the open doors at the end of the aisle in a burst of sunlight that dazzled tears into my eyes. By the time I could see clear again she was just about at my side, her daddy walking her down the aisle like she’d hoped he could. She was soft an’ pretty and perfect, an’ her Pop looked like another weight was lifting off his shoulders. He never had explained what he’d said the first time we’d met, but I meant to take care of his girl the rest of my life, so I figured it didn’t matter.

I didn’t hear a damned word of the ceremony, nothing except the parts where I was s’posed to say I do an’ I will . I got those parts out, and the rest of it I was just looking at my Annie and feelin’ fit to burst. She was always beautiful, but I didn’t think even Princess Grace could hold a candle to her right then. I said so on the way outta the church an’ she said she’d believe me ‘cause I was better-looking than Prince Rainier III, which happened to be true, so to my way of thinking, we were starting out a fairy tale.

Trouble is, fairy tales got monsters in ‘em.

I was at home studyin’ for the last college final when she called me from work. I’d been out of the Army and married for two years, an’ in all that time I’d never heard her sound so strained or upset. I had my shoes on before I knew what was wrong, an’ in the end all she could say that made any sense was, “Please hurry.”

I’d been in and outta the hospital plenty of times over the past year, picking Annie up from work or just coming by to say hello. I knew a lotta the names and faces, and most folks were ready to stop and talk a minute, especially late at night like it was now. But the place was just about deserted, an’ the people I saw were strained and unhappy, like somethin’ might jump outta the shadows if they stopped by them for too long. I tried asking after Annie, but nobody would answer, so I took myself up to where she usually worked.

She wasn’t there. I started to let myself get worried then, and grabbed a nurse who was passing by. “Where’s Annie Muldoon? She usually works here.”

The lady pulled away like she was afraid, instead of just annoyed at my rudeness. She whispered, “I’m not sure. They called everyone with any psychiatric experience up to the third floor a while ago. Annie went up there.” She gave herself a shake and blinked like she was seeing me for the first time. “You’re her husband, right? She called you before she went up. All the patients up there woke up all at once and started screaming about seeing visions. The same visions, all of them.”

“Wait a minute. Woke up?”

“It’s our long-term illness ward.” The nurse was pulling herself together now that she had somebody to lecture about hospital regulations. “One or two of the patients up there are actually comatose, breathing on their own but surviving through IV feeds. Others are terminally ill and spend a great deal of time in medically induced comas for their own comfort.”

Sounded like hell. Dying quick and getting it over with seemed like the best way to go, to me. But I kept my mouth shut, listening as the lady said, “They’ve all woken up, even the ones who were comatose. Nothing will put them back down, and there’s something…something dreadful about their faces. Like there’s no living mind inside them anymore, just some kind of anger trying to escape. I went up to help but I couldn’t bear it. Almost no one’s been able to stay near them for long. Anne is very brave.”