The Veil War

The nazi dinosaurs were getting closer. The Cherry spoke out. “What do we do Sarge?”

“Shoot it, fuck it or eat it,” Dumbfucker said. PFC Buck Tucker. AKA Buck Tucker the Dumbfucker, and the world’s most outstanding black redneck.

“That describes all your human relationships, Dumbfucker.” Jesus H Tap-dancing Christ. “I will allow that does seem to cover the range of possibilities.”

“Shut your whore mouth, Cherry,” I said, just to forestall a gout of idiocy.

“I suppose, us being in the Army and all and therefore completely fucked up, we should attempt to communicate with them and avoid WWIII.”

I paused, registering the blank incomprehension on the faces of the soldiers in my command.

“And when that fails, we can shoot them.”

I thought furiously. What would be the best way to initiate communications with nazi dinosaurs? Fuck, all we ever talk about is zombies. If they were zombie nazi dinosaurs, I’d know exactly what the fuck to do. Well, there’s only eighteen of them. We’re outnumbered. But they have tiny arms.

That evens things out, doesn’t it? Shit! What if they have the Ark of the Covenant or some shit? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do.”

***

PFC James walked around the rock carrying a white flag. Well, a whitish sheet on a stick. I neglected to ask why it was no longer white in splotches.

I followed, M4 at the low ready. As soon as we cleared the rock, the nazi dinosurs saw us. Maybe fucking Spielberg was right about the motion sensing. Thirty-six cold, yellow, cat-like lizard eyes locked in on us like gunsights. The lead dinosaur held up its tiny, clawed hand. The others raised their suspiciously MP-40esque guns.

“Wave the flag, Idaho.” James dutifully wiggled the sheet a little.

I stepped forward. “Identify yourselves!” Better than, ‘take me to your leader,’ I thought. I kept my carbine pointed at the stony path, though my hands really, really wanted to point it at a lizard.

The lead lizard had fancy striped tabs on his slight, sloping shoulders. Officer, I guessed. The officer nazi dinosaur kept walking. The backwards articulation of his legs made his movements eerie as fuck. A fucking giant, predatory, featherless, chicken. And anti-Semite, no doubt. His head rotated from side to side as he regarded me first with one eye, then the other. The motion was smooth, almost robotic.

“Ich heiße Leutnant Boehm. Und wer sind Sie?”

Well, that sounded like German. With a weird, almost musical trilling undertone, though. His mouth barely moved when he talked, like he was a ventriloquist with an invisible dummy. Or maybe Ramirez.

“English?” Do you speak it, motherfucker?

“I… am… Lieutenant Boehm.”

Well, howdy lieutenant. It speaks English. With a distinct Nazi accent.

“Who am I speaking vith?” he asked.

“I am Subcommandante Mumbles. I lead the resistance in this valley.”

“Yes? Resistance to vat?”

“The Americans”

The dinosaur cocked its head like a confused puppy. No fucking way am I giving useful intelligence to a fucking swastika-wearing mammal-killer.

***

Click here to get see all published episodes of the Saga of Subcommandante Mumbles.

No fucking shit. I’d skooched up to where the trail bent around to the right. I peered around the corner and there they fucking were.

“Ramirez!”

“Sergeant?”

“You forgot to mention the fucking swastikas.”

“Sorry, sergeant.” For once, I was willing to cut the stupid fucker some slack. I mean, shit, dinosaurs with guns is usually going to be the high point of your day.

“Subcommandante?”

“What!” Get drunk once and say you’re going to overthrow the President and they’ll never let it go.

“Do we have ROE for nazi dinosaurs?”

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that it falls under ‘permissive’. If the goose-stepping lizards fire on you, shoot the fuck back and let the State Department sort it out.”

I took another look. Jesus fuck that’s creepy. “My nightmares aren’t keeping up with my reality,” I muttered. They marched in step, but with none of the rigidity of your stereotypical fascist goose-stepper. It was hard to judge scale, but damn me if they weren’t man-height. My little brother was all pissy when Jurassic Park made the velociraptors too big. So they can’t be that.

Tails whipped back and forth like an agitated cat’s. Their heads were long and constantly tracking back and forth. Despite the swagger to their walk, those teeth-filled heads stayed perfectly level, not bouncing up and down like a bird’s. Tiger-striped, scaly skin and yellow eyes, check. If that thing can look me in the eye without standing on its tippy-toes, it’s got to be at least twelve feet from nose to tail, I guessed.

So far, so discovery channel. The Fritz helmets in black with red swastikas on each side were a distinct departure. Feldgrau uniform jackets and no pants, okay, that makes sense. Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS, I wonder? The standard-bearer carried a Roman-style eagle banner with a bright red Nazi flag in his tiny arms. Machine pistols and Panzerfaust completed the theme.

The dinosaurs were still maybe a klick out. Fuck me.

“Idaho! Radio!”

Corporal James was from Maine, but he did like potatoes. He brought up the handset. I looked around at my squad. “I have been fearing this moment for my entire life,” I said. I picked up the radio.

“Hounddog Base this is Poodle, over.” Fuck the lieutenant and his radio call signs.

“Poodle, Hounddog Actual.”

Shit, Lieutenant Hounddog hissown self. “Chihauha Actual, possible hostiles. Location 1000 meters north-northwest our position. Unknowns appear to be Nazi Dinosaurs. Over.”

“Poodle, say again all after Unknowns. Over.”

“Wiernerdog Actual, I say again, Nazi Dinosaurs. November, Alfa, Zulu, India. Fucking Nazis. Fucking Dinosaur Nazis.”

“ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH MUMBLES?”

I dropped the mike. “That went well, I think.”

***

Click here to get see all published episodes of the Saga of Subcommandante Mumbles.

Call me mumbles. Why, you ask? Because I fucking told you to.

I was humping up this hill in shitbagistan, heavy load and thin air. I could hear the cherry private wheezing behind me. Wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up, but it just wasn’t worth the effort.

I heard the soft, echoing tick of a rock bouncing down the hill somewhere ahead. I held up, and the cherry bounced right into the back of me. I strained my ears, but didn’t hear anything more. The air was clear and cold. The sere mountainsides were resplendent in a kaleidoscope of colors ranging from shit brown to shit brown. We were up about five hundred meters from the valley floor, and the observation post was two klicks ahead. On the same level, but we’d have to go up and down at least a 1000 meters to get there. God forbid the trail follow the contour lines or anything.

From here, the whole valley stretched out below. A piss-poor excuse for a river meandered down the middle of it, not worth more than a creek back home. Two villages anchored either end. The residents hated each other, the next valley over, us, and the Taliban in descending order of fucked-up homicidal rage. Hatfields and McCoys with burqas, boy-buggery and opium.

I sensed the cherry about to open his stupid whore mouth. “Shut up!” I hissed. Couldn’t hear anything. Fuck this for a joke, I thought. I waved our little relief column forward. There’d been no reports of enemy activity for most of a month. The last, our lieutenant had been pleased to report, was over a fortnight ago. Fuck him and his word-builder vocabulary cards.

The fucktards from the lead platoon who were now probably sleeping in the OP hadn’t reported anything either. But then, they’d have only noticed if the Mahdi snuck into their sleeping bag and started pissing in their mouths. Fucking 4th ID. I heard the ticking noise again. This time the cherry managed to avoid a collision when I stopped. The longer between contact, the worse it always is.

I waved Ramirez up the hill. If he got up just a little bit, he’d be able to see over the hump the trail turned around as it followed the slope. Me, I just waited and identified likely bits of cover for every conceivable line of attack.

“Fuck!”

The cry echoed out into the vast space between our ridge and fucking Siberia. Ramirez was running and sliding down the hill, kicking up dust and rocks. We all turned our heads and let the mini-spicalanche bounce off our body armor and helmets. Ramirez skidded to a stop. His eyes were wide in his tanned face, almost bugging out. He looked goddamned ridiculous.

“Given up on stealth, have we Ramirez?”

“No, sergeant. I mean, yes, sergeant.”

“Glad we cleared that up. Can I ask why came careening down the hill instead of using the fucking radio?”

That gave him pause. He pondered that for a good long while, in fact. The hamster in its exercise wheel slowed and coasted to a stop. Ramirez looked merely blank and stupid again instead of panicked, blank and stupid.

“Sergeant?”

“Ramirez, why did you yell, ‘fuck’ and come running down the hill?”

He screwed himself up. “Dinosaurs.”

“OK.” Why me? Why, why, why?

“Were they the big plant eatering fuckers or the ones with the big sharp teeth?”

“Uh… the teethy kind.”

“Did you get a count?”

“Eighteen of them, sergeant.”

Holy shit. He listened, bless his heart. “Were they armed?”

“Small arms and what looked like RPGs.”

***

This is a short sample of “Call Me Mumbles” – the first episode of the Saga of Subcommandante Mumbles vs. The Dinosaur Nazis. Click here to get see all published episodes.

This is a silly story. I admit. Some friends were joking around and one line caught me funny – and this story was born. I’ll post one section each day, about 500 words a pop. Enjoy.

P.S. Click here to get see all published episodes of the Saga of Subcommandante Mumbles.