David Presley - Rise of the Undead 1943

Smith smiles, “We got shovels, moron,” and he taps the entrenching tool on his pack.

Johnson chimes in, “I spent a summer mining copper out in Wyoming.”

“Yeah, yeah!” Oddball replies excited.

“It is not like that!” Yusif snaps.

All eyes turn to him.

“Alright, Moses. Keep your turban on,” Pilch says.

“Pilch!” Monte snaps, and he clams up.

Pender continues, “Now, I know we all like Lieutenant Groves, but he’s gone, and we ain’t getting him back. I got a letter from him. He’s in England and… well they couldn’t save his leg, so he won’t be back. This here is Lieutenant Harris, our new platoon leader.”

All eyes turn to Harris. He looks the band of boys over with obvious disdain, “I’m only going to say this once; I run a tight platoon, and I run it by the book. I don’t like what I’m seeing already. I don’t like the whining, I don’t like the grumbling, and I don’t like the lack of discipline. It will stop. Weapons inspection in fifteen. We move out in thirty.”

Monte steps forward, “You heard him, girls! Strip ’em and clean ’em!”

Despite the passionate speech by Harris, the men grumble.

Smith, on point, leads the men through the canyon where the Germans were ambushed the day before. Dead bodies lay bloating under the desert sun, and equipment is scattered along the route. Pender and Monte follow close behind Smith, talking quietly.

“Guess they don’t take prisoners,” Monte says pointing to a German body lying on the ground with a telltale execution shot to the back of the head.

Pender shrugs, “More replacements and some additional non-coms should be along in a few days.”

“We need ’em,” Monte says looking around the small group of men, “Half strength and half of them ain’t even got their boots broke in.”

Pender looks back to Harris who struggles to get his back pack comfortable, “And that kid don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.”

“West Point?”

Pender nods, “Daddy is a state senator in Virginia.”

“Oh, from a proper family then,” Monte says with a smile.

“Yes, which means we gotta try and keep the little pecker-head alive,” Pender says turning to Monte with a stern expression.

The smile drops from his face and he nods in agreement. Yusif passes them and moves ahead of Smith, taking the point.

“Hey! Where you going?” Pender calls out. Yusif continues with a wave of dismissal.

Pender starts to object when Camir steps from a group of rocks. Smith stops, shocked that he was so close. Yusif greets him in Arabic. Pender holds up his hand and the platoon comes to a halt. Pender slaps Smith on the back, “Nice spotting there, Hawkeye.”

“But ain’t he on our side?” Smith protests.

“We can put that on your tombstone,” Pender tells him and moves forward to Yusif and Camir. He sees the abandoned archeological camp in the distance.

Pilch and Oddball inspect the German corpse with the head wound. Pilch looks at the soldier’s insignia, “Third mechanized,” and then roughly searches through the pockets.

“They the ones that chewed us up at Kasserine, right?”

Pilch nods, taking the wallet from the corpse and standing, “Can’t say I’m sorry to see ’em rotting here dead.”

Oddball looks at the wallet and shakes his head in disapproval. Pilch shrugs and pockets it then, checking that Monte or Pender aren’t looking, he unzips his trousers and urinates on the dead man’s face.

Yusif and Camir talk in hushed tones. They look up as Pender approaches.

“What’s the hold up?”

Yusif waves him silent.

“Alright, I’ll just hold on then,” he says irked and looks back to check on the men and sees Pilch urinating on the dead German, “God damn Pilch,” he mutters to himself.

Monte moves up shaking his head, “I don’t know which is worse,’ he says looking at Pilch, “him or him,” and he nods toward Harris.

Pender follows his gaze to Harris. The young officers is on one knee, map in hand, compass around his neck, binoculars up to his eyes, trying to look the part of a West Point war hero. Pender shakes his head, “Jesus Christ, does he think there’s a photographer someplace getting a picture of this?”

Pilch zips up, looks around to the top of the canyon and un-slings his rifle, “Shouldn’t be sitting here,” he says as he slips back a few feet and behind a rock for cover, “I wouldn’t just stand there gawking,” he tells Oddball as he removes the protective covers over the telescopic sight of his sniper rifle.

“Why not,” Oddball says defiantly as he pulls a pack of smokes from his shirt pocket.

Pilch gently cleans the glass, “Never good when we stop this long.”

Something moves under the sand by the German corpse near Oddball. He doesn’t notice as he struggles to light a cigarette in the desert wind. Oddball turns around trying to use his body as shelter from the wind when it stops and a peaceful calm comes over the desert. He lights the cigarette and looks around. A lone cloud passes in front of the sun and the bright day briefly goes dark. Pilch shoulders his rifle, ready for action. The sand moves again, closer to Oddball. As the cloud moves from the sun the wind hits with a roar.

Pilch looks around, “I got a bad feeling.”

Oddball looks over to Pilch, “What ’ya mean?”

“I’m just saying I got a bad feeling is all.”

“Well, why you gotta say that? Now I got a bad feeling,” Oddball whines as he looks to the top of the canyon.

Matty strolls up behind Pilch and smacks him in the back of the helmet, “You always got bad feelings. You ever thought that maybe your just a bad person?”

Pilch looks to him, offended, “Why you gotta say that? Now I got a bad feeling about you.”

Yusif turns from Camir to face Pender, “Several Germans wait ahead.”

Pender peers into the distance, “Where?”

Camir leans his head around the rocks, and Pender follows his gaze. They see three Germans in the distance, atop a group of high rocks above the abandoned archaeological camp.

“Shit, we ain’t gettin’ them outta there easy,” Pender notes and waves Harris over.

“What the hell?” Pilch says looking to see the German corpse has disappeared. Oddball and Pilch exchange a ‘what the fuck’ look.

“Where did he go?” Oddball asks in alarm.

“Where’d who go?” Matty asks.

“The German,” Oddball whines.

Matty looks around, “What German?”

Pilch gazes accusingly at Matty, “How’d you do that?”

“Do what?” Matty whines.

“Hide the German,” Pilch barks.

Harris joins them trying to tuck all of his accessories into pockets, “What do we got?” He demands and looks to Yusif.

Yusif can sense something is wrong; he looks past Harris toward Pilch and sees something moving under the sand near his foot. He slowly draws his scimitar; it hums as it leaves the sheath. The sand stops moving. Harris follows his gaze and then looks back to the scimitar.

“Got a group of Krauts waitin’ on us,” Pender informs him as he checks that his weapon is ready and not noticing the strange moment with the scimitar, “Monte, take first and second, string out in a line and pivot in. I’ll take the rest along the rocks here. You give us a good base of fire.”

Pender looks up to see Monte staring at the humming scimitar. Pender snaps his fingers to get his attention, “Sergeant!”

Monte looks up to Pender, “Got it.”

Harris looks up from the scimitar to find Yusif staring at him. He looks to Pender, “Sergeant, I’ll give the orders here.”

Pender looks to Harris. The two men lock eyes.