Casanova

Casanova1

I wasn’t there when the first of it happened. I was visiting family in the Scottish Highlands. But we saw it on the news; entire cities were bombed to ash in the first wave of planes and even after that they fired artillery and dropped the bombs until there was nothing left.2

We were too far north to get hit in the attacks launched from France and Spain but they didn’t forget us and the tanks came over from Norway in great big ships. I ran south with my family but we were caught at a blockade, they were killed in an explosion there and I lost three months of my life to Amnesia.3

Confusion gave way to relief and even more confusion when I discovered that there had been survivors. We were underground, hiding from the great war machine still grinding its gears over our nation.4

They wanted me to help and I was angry, all the death and destruction and not even a warning of it. I agreed and weeks of training followed. I learnt to shoot and I learnt to survive in the ashen wasteland of the surface. Then, when I was ready, I learnt my goal; to strike an enemy fuel supply. We went to meet God in high spirits that morning:5

I remember the sun was shining and the sky was completely cloudless, thanks to the missiles that had scorched the atmosphere. The air blew around us in thick eddies, my lungs strained to obtain their fill with every breath. I was shivering profusely.6

There was another two men with me whose names I didn’t know. They were older than me, a lot older. They carried themselves like soldiers, looking down the sights of their guns and nervously watching the tattered horizon. I followed them as they led me away towards a low ridge.7

Motioning low for me to crouch the other men laid against the side of the small hill, I did the same and peeked over the top. It was the edge of a crater, a huge gulley at least a mile long and a hundred yards deep. I felt sick to know that this was my home, all that was left now scars and burnt.8

“Patrol.” We huddled down against the ashen earth as he called that out, a moment later the man immediately to my right looked over the top of the hill and we were engulfed in gunfire. Machineguns chattering away as the ground about us exploded in miniature geysers and the air above us was filled with whizzing and cracking lead. What fools we were to think that we could fly on paper wings.9

The soldiers were eerily silent, no shouts or commands. The enemy wore huge cloaks of armour and masks resembling mythical beasts. I’d seen them in pictures but they were scarier when they were pulling their triggers but metres away.10

“Return fire!” Our orders were clear, but I was scared, the roar of gunfire was deafening and the first man to pop his head back up over the edge of the hill was dead before he slid to its base. Face a mess of mangled flesh and bone. I remember throwing up quite vividly.11

The other soldier had survived, he lay beside me on his back, reloading his weapon. “Shoot them Laddie.” The pistol on my belt felt like a paperweight, doubtful it could do any damage to the enemy soldiers I shook my head. “Do it or we die!”12

It was then that I got my first kill, my first stomach churning fatality. Stones rolled off the top of the hill and a werewolf-masked soldier emerged over its peak. Like lightening I yanked my pistol free of its holster and began to pull back on the trigger as fast as I could. Each shot sounded like a cannon on an old Spanish galleon and every time the slide came back it felt like a wrecking ball.13

There were sparks as bullet after bullet bounced right off of his reactive armour, and he just stood there. Sure enough my clip was empty, the slide held back and it clicked at least twenty times as I tried to squeeze another desperate shot out of the useless weapon. It never dawned on me that the man wasn’t shooting for a reason.14

“Pull him down!” My companion was shouting at me, “Quickly fool!” But his words came from across such a great distance that I didn’t hear any of them. Ringing was all that filled my ears and little tinkling clicks and splashes. The man crashed down beside me, hitting me in the jaw with his elbow as he fell.15

Reality returned slowly then, noises defined themselves, bullets and gravel were the clicks and splashes and as though he could run at great speed the soldiers voice came to me instantly. “Get his gun! Return fire!” It didn’t make sense to me at first, it sounded like a foreign language but having the butt of the long rifle thrust upon me I had little choice but to take it. “Shoot them!”16

The Adrenaline was like the tide, it came on and it didn’t stop until I was over the top of the hill, standing in plain view and firing the rifle full auto at our assailants. It had a kind of tinny rattling to it and little recoil despite its staggering rate of fire. I think I blacked out.17

“Great job kid.” I blinked and looked around, everything was taunting me by spinning and making strange noises. “But these aren’t the last; there’s a tank nearby.” A god? How could he know that?18

“What?” My own voice didn’t seem so familiar anymore, it sounded very much like I’d imagine a Camels fart to sound like. “Tanks?” The man was nodding and stripping the armour from the fallen soldier.19

“Just one I hope. Put this on.” He tossed a long sleeve of armour plates at me and I just obeyed, I don’t know why I did it but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The rest of the armour followed as he stripped it from the corpse and passed it to me. It was heavy and sweaty and I’m still thankful he never passed me the bloodstained mask.20

I got the mask from the other soldier I’d shot, it was clean but smelt of Smoked Bacon. I was hungry and I realised it at that point. The crap we had wouldn’t sustain us forever. A problem for a later date, to be solved when it arose.21

Now in their full attire, I sat on the side of the hill where we had been originally, listening as the veteran laid out his plan; “Right, you walk right over to it.” Just like that, “Don’t respond to anything they say just climb on the tank, open the hatch and do what you did here.” He punched me on the shoulder but I didn’t feel it, it could have been the heavy armour or the fact that I felt numb and sick.22

“I have to kill them?” Now that I’d worked off my fear and anger on these souls I felt sorry for them too. I didn’t want to shoot anyone else.23

“Yes, they’d do the same to us if they got the chance.” I didn’t want to do it, that’s what my heart said. But my head said it was right, this was war. No, it wasn’t war. It wasn’t a war at all it was simply an invasion, they aren’t fights, they’re genocide.24

“Alright.” My heart was dead inside anyway, just like everyone else here, present company excluded. I pushed myself up to my feet and checked the armour looked right. With everything in order I hoisted the rifle into my hands and scanned the horizon.25

“They came from the other end of the crater, the tank will be there.” I would have nodded if the thick padding had allowed me to but it didn’t and so I trudged off towards the other end of the great ravine trying to look as confident as I possibly could, it wasn’t hard behind the dragon mask.26

The tank, nestled between two large boulders, was like some great brooding beast the sting in its tail aimed for me as I came into its line of sight from the worst possible direction.27

“Identify.” The metallic voice came crystal clear through the earpiece of the mask. I ignored it and continued to approach. “Identify.” It repeated. Still I didn’t feel compelled to answer, not that I’m sure I could have with the huge lump in my throat.28

The shot was instantaneous. The crack, like thunder, came a millisecond or so after the actual shell had hit its mark. I was still standing, wreathed in swirling smoke and dust falling from thin air. A crater to my near right. “Surrender.” A new demand that barely registered in my shell-shocked mind still reeling from the close encounter with the tank shell. 29

I found my feet still carrying me forwards and tried to halt them. Something was showing up in my vision, right on the edge of my periphery. I tried to focus and saw that it was a line, yellow and fuzzy. I lifted my arm to tap on the side of the mask and the most incredible things happened.30

First; a switch previously unnoticed on the mask depressed. Second; the tank let loose with its second shell. Third; everything stopped. 31

Pricks all over my body like a thousand needles piercing my flesh through the armoured padding. The air was distorted, it could have been my vision. The tank shell hovered in mid-flight, its SABOT casing half shredded away by the friction. Adrenaline.32

Chemical clarity shot into my body and everything else except for me and the tank fell away into oblivion. It became obvious what I had to do. Kill it. I rushed forwards, ducking under the suspended shell, the SABOT shredded away a little further in my passing. Time had not completely stopped. That was a relief redirected straight to my subconscious.33

I cleared the fuel tanks on the back of the tank in a single leap and landed atop the mechanized monstrosity. The hatch was thick and rounded, I kicked at it and the metal crushed inwards under my foot but as my leg retracted it slowed in the air as though fighting to fly through thick syrup.34

The rush was incredible. This was the biggest scientific breakthrough of the millennium and I was sat inside of it. How the enemy troops had occupied the country so quickly became obvious now, how could our conventional soldiers stand up to these super soldiers.35

I lifted my rifle to aim at the fuel tank, the calculation already done in my mind. The trigger pulled and nothing. As I expected; it would take the bullet hours at this rate to reach the fuel tank. I let go of the weapon and leapt off the tank, landing close to my original standing point.36

Explosion. A gigantic fireball rose up behind me and illuminated the sky a brilliant orange streaked with grey and black smoke. The unmistakable sound of a thirty-odd tonne gun turret falling thirty-odd feet came from behind me. Then from ahead of me the explosion, geyser of dirt and flame, of a tank shell exploding in the normally quiet countryside.37

Time goes on.38