It Burns From Within

CW: Strong violence and gore, as well as some sexual themes

The rain had lessened somewhat, the heavy battering akin to the beating of war drums now but a gentle chatter. This was a blessing for First lieutenant Wright, not because his clothes would not get further soaked, his unform already drenched as if recently baptized, but because his line of vision was now clearer, and the less muddy the already dewy ground became, the better for travel. He looked up at the full moon, the light peeking through the thick canopy through whatever cracks and crevices it could. The light glistened on his perspiring forehead, even though it was late evening, Wright hot and oozing sweat. He did not know if it was from the humid heat, of which the jungle gave plenty with open hands, or his own fear, which squeezed his heart and burned from within.

Wright wiped the sweat from his brow and looked back at the convoy. Five in total, sat or lay slumped and dejected on the muddy slope, their jeep turned over and still sizzling from the prior attack. Elisa sat crouched next to Maverick, his legs gone from the weight of the overturned jeep and now just a torso with arms and a head. She clenched his palm as he gazed absentmindedly at the sky, muttering incoherently. A burden, though Wright despised the thought. Thomas sat slumped against a tree, still trying to get the comms back up. "This is second lieutenant Thomas", he would repeat. "We have encountered enemy fire and are currently stranded in the North jungle." His cries fell on deaf ears, and sometimes static, which seemed to mock him.

Newt and Freddy, brothers, sat on a wet rock by themselves, neither saying much, save for the occasional whimper that would escape Freddy's mouth, prompting Newt to pat him on the back and say it's gonna be okay. Newt was twenty-two, Freddy newly nineteen.

Bzzz. The static picked up, Thomas barely getting excited, assuming the device was once again hoping to mock him. Then a voice rang out.

"This is First lieutenant Hampton. Did you say your location is the north jungle? Over."

Thomas shot up, as did the rest of the convoy. He pushed the button on the radio , leaning in.

"Yes, First lieutenant Wright's convoy is currently stranded in the north jungle. Requesting search and rescue. Over."

Static, then silence.

"A team can't be sent out to that location. It is urgent that you-"

Then, like a small flame in violent wind, the voice cut out. No static, only silence, and the venomous chatter of fat mosquitos.

Thomas looked up in disbelief at Wright.

"D-did you hear that? Or am I crazy? They said-"

"We're not getting help", Wright said, turning around and staring at the dizzying stretch of dense tress that lied in front of them.

"What do we do", Elisa inquired.

Wright sighed.

"We keep forward."

***

Bumps the size of gumdrops now decorated the soldiers bodies, gluttonous mosquitos hanging around them 'til they hungered again and went back to feast. Covering their agape and ruddy holes was sweat that was days old and new, mixed in with dirt and muck. Their muscles ached, and seemed to bleed from within. Even in the dark, the heat of the sun was brutal, and little reprieve was found under the canopy. They took turns carrying Maverick, who had a little earlier fell off Elisa's back and rolled down a small slope, hitting his already bleeding head on a stone. They bandaged him up, and prayed to whatever somewhat benevolent being may be watching that he not die. Animals that meant harm lurked in the woods, and behind tress and in bushes, but did not attack them. Perhaps due to the soldiers stink, and wounds, and proximity to death, or perhaps because it would be too quick a death and their nature or perhaps some other presence drove them towards cruelty.

They walked, and walked, the woods and trees seeming to stretch on no matter how far they progressed. They walked until the mosquitos left their source of food, the travel too great for them. They walked until the howls and terrible cries of the animals ceased, this part of the woods not for them. They walked until the canopy became thick, like a sky. Like the blue or black sky never exited at all, and it was only the thick of the tress that covered the earth. Though this was true, the heat somehow managed to increase, the canopy blocking it in like a oven. The dew rose from the green of the ground, and the air became a hot, sticky molasses to be trudged through. Around the sixth hour, Maverick's stumps began to stink, and Wright quietly wept to himself, not because of Maverick's condition, but because the smell was added to his already towering heap of miseries and he felt it had all become too much.

Around the eighth hour, seemingly lost in a maze, they sat slumped against tress or lied on mounds of dirt to rest a little. Around the seventeenth hour, they awoke, the sky still dark and the heat unrelenting. They quibbled and debated about the strangeness of this, but no meeting of the minds was had, and they continued onward on Wright's orders. Around the twenty-forth hour, they realized Maverick had died and buried him beneath a tree. Maverick was Jewish, and the only other Jewish member of the convoy was Wright, who was half-Jewish on his father's side. Wright spoke a brief prayer to the best of his remembrance, but himself never being religious, knew little to no Hebrew. Towards the end of his prayer he mainly spoke fabricated gibberish, but the rest of the convoy looked at ease so he thought it not a wrongdoing.

Around the thirtieth hour, they rested again, the heat simply too much and the humidity lethal. Their clothes made them hotter, and stuck to their skin like guilt does a conscious, so they disrobed and spread them out on the ground, lying down on them.

Around the thirty-forth hour, Freddy woke up screaming and in tears. Newt immediately rushed to console him. Freddy spoke about a nightmare he had, though it felt so real he could swear he had lived it. He said that no one would would save us, and our troubles fell on deaf ears, and that there weren't ears at all to hear. He said we came here to shed blood, and in blood we shall find our purpose.

They convoy carried on walking, abandoning their clothes, which where drenched in sweat, and dirt, and blood, and feces, and all other manner of filth, proceeding on nude save for their weaponry. Around the thirty-eighth hour, they rested again.

Wright woke up about an hour into their sleep, cracking his eye open in the dark to see Newt and Freddy having sex with Elisa. He closed his eye and went back to sleep.

Around the forty-second hour, a little into their traversing, Thomas's comm revived, static at first, then after a moment strange and incoherent guttural mumblings. They continued traveling, Freddy noting that the trees had become taller, the tree line almost out of sight. Vietnam jungles had towering forests, but not to this extent. They continued traveling, Freddy stating he noted a smell of smoke in the air. Wright flared his nostrils and concurred, though Newt, Thomas and Elisa didn't smell it. After awhile, they came across a stream, none besides Elisa particularly religious, but all thanking God as they rushed into the water, drinking and bathing. Freddy splashed water on Newt's bare behind as he was leaned into the water, rinsing the sweat and dirt and bugs from his hair. Newt rose up, splashing water on Freddy, who in turned splashed water on Elisa, who in turn splashed water on Freddy and then Thomas, who in turn splashed water onto Wright. They began to play and frolic like children in the stream, running, and splashing and falling in the water, only to rise again with the vigor of baptism to repeat.

After a long while, the child like vigor of splashing and running dwindled, and they returned to the muddy ground somber. They continued their traveling, though still stranded and in great dread, feeling in slightly better spirits. They traveled for a few more hours, around the forty-seventh hour deciding to rest. Before loosing consciousness, his brows more like bricks than flesh, Wright could swear he saw smoke afar off, and crimson flame.

Around the fifty-first hour, they awoke to find Freddy missing. Like the humid heat, dread had enveloped Newt. Wright reassured him they'd find Freddy, saying the only thing they could do is continue forward. In the far crevices of his brain, Wright wondered if Freddy's disappearance had anything to do with the smoke and fire he saw the previous night. He thought it best not to say anything, least the belief the convoy had in him faltered.

They descended further into the jungle, which seemed apparently boundless, and hostile to any manner of human logic or reason, the crooked and winding trees stretching up past the firmament. Further in, on a particularly grotesque gathering of crooked and seemingly rotten trees, they found Freddy hanging from one, his palms nailed to the black bark with sharpened wood. Dried, mahogany blood stained his arms and sides. His stomach and abdomen were flayed open, his intestines and organs half draped out. Newt fell to ground, undone. He stayed there for a long while, silent. Wright eventually told the convoy to continue moving, saying Freddy is unfortunately already gone. They walked, but Newt stayed, causing Wright to come back and take him by the arm. Newt began to wail and flail.

Wright looked at Newt, his eyes like flint. Newt kept his weeping, but ceased his thrashing and got up, following the convoy.

"...this means we're not alone", Thomas said, his gaze trained on the winding roots which threatened to trip him at any moment.

Wright didn't say much, only for everyone to stay alert and have their guns ready to use. They walked on in silence, the only sound the occasional whimper that escaped Newt's mouth. Around the fifty-ninth hour, they decided to rest. Wright and Thomas would keep watch first, then Elisa and Newt.

Around the sixty-first hour, as he stood slumped against a tree, Wright saw his brother, Timothy, whom he abandoned years ago for death, emerge out of the woods, pale and thin.

His body was wet, and shivering, his sandy hair draped over his forehead. He squeezed his arms. Wright's eyes stretched wide, and he walked forward in awe, and in terror, and in great remorse.

"Tim", Wright could only say, outstretching his hands.

Tim didn't move for Wright, standing still, the full moon sneaking through some gaps in the canopy to cast a ghostly glow across his already pale body.

Wright inched forward, shame more so weighing down his steps than the dread or the aching or tiredness.

"Tim...I-"

"Wright no!", Thomas shouted, Wright stopping, his eyes blinking as he felt the hot and wet air assault his face and skin, as if just awakened from a trance. To the side, Thomas grunted, rolling in the mud with a large, cloaked figure. Wright looked in front of him, a robed, hulking brute standing, his face concealed by a hood and strange guttural chanting coming out, the sound of which was as hypotonic as it was terrifying.

Like a mother rushes for her child, or a drowning man thrashes for air, Wright's hand shot for his pistol. Two, thundering cracks rang out, and the brute fell backwards to the forest floor. Wright proceeded to Thomas, who was stabbed the still aggressive figure six times thus far, and pointed his pistol to the back of his head, firing. A crack, and then a thud, the man now backwards on the ground.

"Where's Elisa and Newt?", Wright asked, huffing as he circled, observing the forest, his eyes keen like a hawk.

"I don't know", Thomas replied, rising from the ground, his body covered in gore. "When I snapped from the trance, I heard Newt yelling from somewhere nearby, but didn't see or hear Elisa."

Wright stood studying the black woods. "Where was the yelling coming from?"

"North", Thomas replied. Forward. The way they were already headed.

"So we continue straight", Wright said, stepping over a log and descending further into the green inferno.

As they continued trudging, the smell of smoke, and burnt meat became apparent. Wright didn't voice aloud his fears, though he knew Thomas already thought them.

A bellowing, frenzied chant, faint at first, but growing stronger by the second carried to them on the wind. Both men readied both blade and firearm, and inched closer to the hot, bright orange which waited behind the trees. They saw dancing and jumping figures circling around a fire, above it on long and burnt pieces of wood hanged four people. Fear squeezed both Wright's and Thomas's heart, making it hard to breath.

They emerged out of the woods and into the clearing, Wright raising his pistol and firing a shot into the air, thunder echoing.

Wright looked at the people hanging, Newt and Elisa among them, their eyes gouged out, and carvings in their chest and stomach. The other two people, a man and woman, the woman pregnant by the look of it, were already dead.

"Anybody so much as twitch, and it's a bullet in your skull", Wright said, approaching the fire.

The figures, hulking and cloaked, their feet nude and dirt covered, stood silent. They watched as Wright and Thomas approached Newt and Elisa.

"W-wright”, Newt said, his empty and red sockets staring blankly ahead as his chest heaved. “Bad news is, I think we're gonna die. Good news is, I think I know what happened to Freddy. Hope the lad toughed it out to the end okay.”

"We’re not gonna die", Wright said, bringing his blade up to the rope which bound them. “I’m gonna untie you both, then we’ll deal with these fuckers and get out this godforsaken jungle.”

Wright forced a grin.

"Though, you guys will probably wanna start wearing shades when we get back to the states.”

Wright freed Newt and Elisa (the latter of which was mostly silent), gently lowering them to the ground. Thomas held watch, constantly turning, his gun raised.

A deep, guttural hum, like throat singing, broke out among the cloaked figures.

"Shut that up", Wright hollered.

The hum grew deeper, and louder, strange, almost alien words now being interjected into it.

Like the fable of Moses parting the sea, the woods themselves separated, as if larger, invisible hands had brushed them apart. The earth seemed to groan as a presence emerged from the black of the woods.

For the third time in his life, and perhaps the greatest, Wright felt the fear of God. The first being when his father, Harold Wright, had attempted suicide via shotgun while inebriated on alcohol and morphine, and Jimmy Wright, then aged eleven, had to drive him to the hospital on the freeway. The second, when he and Timothy were playing in the stream even though warned by his parents about the current, and Timothy was dragged under the violent waters, Jimmy swimming away to save himself.

Now, as a hulking mass of black, moldy fur, covered in blisters and open wounds which seemed to pulse and breath, things slithering out of them like birth and walking on mangled legs, tentacles protruding as well from every orifice and infected wound in the things body, lashing wildly about, standing about fifteen feet tall and having many eyes, which seemed red and black and intertwined with strange malevolence , Wright felt for perhaps the first time in his short life, being only twenty-six, true and inescapable dread.