Shades of Blood #4: Vampires In Vietnam

VAMPIRES IN VIETNAM

  BY PETER ACKERS

  Vampires in Vietnam

  “Out in the cold and the rain, our wary band of nine, including an alcoholic and a pair of adrenaline junkies, stumble upon our destination, our mission. Out here in war-torn Vietnam, this motley bunch trekked through the steaming, unpredictable jungle, doing our part for a war nobody really understands. We -“

  “Shut the fuck up, Nero! Put that goddamned tape recorder away before every gook in this cesspool comes a-shooting.”

  Nero - Danny Black - did as he was told, but not because he thought the Sarge - their Sergeant, of course - was right. He obeyed because Sarge was a big mean bastard with a scarred mouth that never allowed him to smile. But in Sarge’s life there was nothing to smile about.

  “This is it. Here’s the trail,” he snapped. He hauled something out of his pocket, but kept it hidden in his fist. His team knew exactly what it was, however.

  The trail was a tarmac scar in the land and no more. Once it had been blueprints for a wide road linking Hanoi and their destination, Hal’ai. Then the Americans had invaded and the project had been terminated. Hal’ai by that time had been nothing more substantial than a small village of ramshackle cages and a lookout post later to be turned into a radio tower. The road, which stretched only two hundred metres, had also been abandoned. That was two years ago and in the interim the jungle had conspired to reclaim the land; lush foliage dipped down from high above to create a canopy above the road. One day the road and the village would be swallowed, and nobody would care. But today the Americans cared: if Hal’ai was suitable as a new command centre close to Hanoi, then they wanted it.

  Sarge tossed the thing in his hand. It bounced on a flat tree stump and stopped. A metal die, showing number three.

  “Christ,” Private Smith groaned. He was number three, as always. Of their nine, Sarge, Nero and Jake didn’t get volunteer duty. Sarge was Sarge, Nero was an important translator, and Jake was the RTO, the radio operator (carrying 35 lb of extra weight) - he was also going mad with the humidity and his migraines.

  “Christ won’t help us,” Sarge said. “Now grab a pew, Smith. Call if you see anything. We’ll be back in three hours.”

  “Three fucking hours,” Smith cursed under his breath. But he’d forgotten about Sarge’s freaky fucking sixth sense. Private Davidson, the youngest of the group, laughed right in Smith’s face. Those two had never gotten on.

  “Make it five,” he snapped. Then to the others: “Let’s go.”

  *

  Walking the trail was easy enough because of the tarmac, but the foliage dipped so low in places they had to crouch for long periods that didn’t please a spine carrying a 57lb backpack.

  “What do we know about this village?” Sarge asked. “And shuttup, you two!”

  He was referring to Edward and Peter Walls, a pair of new recruit young brothers who liked guns and noise just enough to possibly get everyone killed. Ex-boxers, full of beans, brash as hell. Sarge didn’t like them, but then Sarge didn’t like anyone anymore. He cursed the old men who had put these twin idiots under his command.

  “Pretty small village,” Nero said. Danny Black was the smart one of the squad. He had a degree in Asian History and knew the Vietnamese as if he was one of them. Had a rich and powerful family; one of those fucking kids trying to justify his lucky life by indulging in doing his bit for the country, that was Sarge’s opinion. But Nero (nobody recalled how he’d gotten that nickname) was one of those guys nobody disliked. He was probably listed under UNSURE ABOUT rather than DESPISED in Sarge’s book.

  “They’re all small, small and nasty, like poisonous spiders. What else?”

  “After building plans were abandoned, the government turned what they’d built into a POW camp. Hal’ai was basically used as a kind of roadblock in case any of us daft Americans decided to take the scenic route into Hanoi. There are any number of villages like this. In the last year or so, however, they’ve increasingly become abandoned.”

  They all knew this anyway; it was comforting sometimes for Sarge to hear someone talk as they walked. It stopped him being jittery, and that in turn eased everyone else.

  Suddenly the overhead canopy cleared and the trees vanished, and here they were.

  Hal’ai village comprised six rickety wooden cages in a circle around a centrepiece that was nothing but a tall tower of wooden planks. Strangely, lengths of red carpet had been laid in abundance, so that the clearing, which was some forty metres in diameter, was completely covered. In places the carpet was missing large, neat squares where other small buildings had once been.

  “Red carpet? That’s freaky. They holding the next Oscars here or something? I don’t like this.” Oliver Jameson, a former dentist from Ohio. He’d volunteered to go to Vietnam after worrying that his life was going nowhere. But rather than give him a purpose, as he’d hoped, the endless jungle and the fear and the night attacks and the faces of dead comrades had rotted whatever there was of his mind that wasn’t paranoid. These days he spoke seldom and viewed the world through wary eyes.

  “We supposed to like it?” Sarge said. He sighed. “Abandoned, they said. Check it out, see why. Well, we came, we saw, we got tired and pissed off, and hey, there’s no fuckers here. Maybe they all went to the after-Oscar party, you all think?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Let’s move the fuck on. I want my bunk. Back to camp, gents. This has been a major waste of resources. It’s a four-hour trek, so let’s not fart around. Sarge has spoken.”

  Sarge has spoken. That was how Sarge gave orders, with that line. The squad tightened their packs and turned to leave.

  They were stopped by a terrible wail of pain from one of the cages.