"No Rest"

By Terry Luster

Peace was harder to maintain then. Our top priority was hunting down and killing any and everything that would jeopardize our future happiness. I was just one in a long line of dedicated no name killers that thrived on the blood of the heartlessness of war. We were the "Special Forces". Our mission was clear -- kill anything that moved, even the innocent could be considered prey. The zone was not always a place of pain and uncertainty. I could still remember bits and pieces of my childhood that was peaceful and happy. Where mutants did not roam the zone looking for life to devour. Mankind created this disaster with its nuclear supremacy, ransoming our futures for power and greed. Killing to me was not a cruel act but a merciful one, to set souls free from their tormented existence. Mutants were not just hideously deformed, but all memories of their human lives were extinguished within the nuclear explosion. I was tossed into the ranks not for my handsome good looks but for my accuracy and willingness to set what was wrong back into right, with hundreds of mutated bodies that now paved the ground behind me.

We checked every building every home and left nothing standing for only evil dwelled under these darkened skies. It was just another night, another notch in my gun belt. Blood was as sweet as red wine and flowed as fast. I opened the doors to an insane asylum. It was the first time anything has made my hair stand on end. It was not the screams for the demons to leave them alone but the past deaths that would or could not rest. Were the patients really insane or was it this place that had wrapped madness through their souls? I walked down the halls where the walls were white and marked with a gray stripe from hands gliding over them as if they were the only thing stable in the whole place. Every door I opened was more unsettling than the first. The rooms marked in bloodstained walls reeked of half eaten mutants, most still alive on the verge of dying. With my shotgun I freed them all and cleared their minds from the horrors of the zone. I was their savior!

Further and further down the dim hallway I traveled with their screams fading into the background. It seemed that the hallway would never stop until I reached what I thought was the end -- two steel doors that were not locked that sparked my curiosity, which is not hard to do. I reached out for the handle that was cold as ice. Turning back I should have, but of course I continued struggling with the door that weighed a ton and scraped upon the floor. As I put all of my weight into pulling it open just enough to squeeze my body through, I heard a voice not quite a whisper singing. The tone was familiar but the words still garbled under the humming of a large fan at the end of the long hallway. I glanced around in hope I could make out where the singing was coming from but all the doors that I had tried were conveniently locked. As I made my way down the hall, I added to the gray stripe with my own sweaty palms. The light was becoming dimmer and dimmer, but the singing became clearer. It was an old tune that took me back to my childhood where life was hard and death was countless, but I did not let the flashback slow me down for now the singing became an obsession to find. With barely any light, my steps became slower and unsteady, the singing became louder and louder until I reached a door that had a glowing light as if the room was bombarded with unbearable golden light. I reached out for the handle. It was warm and inviting. I opened it without a struggle. In the corner on a bed sat a woman all in white and hair of fire. She turned towards me. I felt a sense of false compassion. My mind raced with whys, but with her words that followed, my illusions of beauty shattered like a mirror thrown against a wall. Her voice crackled unlike the singing I have heard. "Release the wrath of war and victory will be yours, you will see, just set it free!" She repeated this phase over and over, but she was not chained and her door was not locked. What was keeping her here if she wanted to go? Why did she stay? I tried to ask her "why" but her phase became louder and deafened my question. I opened the door to show her how easily it was to leave but that is not what she wanted from me. Her emerald eyes peered past my soul and in that very second I knew just what she wanted from me. "Permission" which would set the wrath of war upon the still struggling zone. Why would she think I would give her permission to do such an irresponsible act towards humanity? I shook my head as I stumbled backwards to the door. The once opened door was now shut and the ice-cold handle would not budge. The lights grew dim and the singing started again, but this time the words cut like knives. "Come to me, set the world a blaze for this is the destiny of men I crave." Falling to my knees, I realized that I was not the only victim of the beast of war for there were others before me that gave their lives for peace and their skulls scattered beneath her feet where I must join them in death as permission from me would not cross my lips. The only blood I would taste would be my own. Her song radiated more than just words, her tones pierced my nerves paralyzing my thoughts. A bloody fight pursued in my mind that she implanted. I cleared my thoughts and hummed the Star-Spangled Banner, which filled my body and mind with a force like no other. Rage splintered with hate for this beast! "No, this can't be my demise!" It's only a matter of time; someone would come along and grant the mother of all mutants' request. I can't leave this legacy behind. In my lifetime I have never cowered under the weight of death and this time is no exception. I reached for my gun, which was frozen to my back, so I pulled my trusted bloodstained knife from its sheave. With a controlling leap, I plunged my knife into her shallow heart. She hurled me back to the ground with a screeching pain of defeat that echoed throughout the room and filled pure energy racing though my veins. Swiftly I bounced back to her side and delivered her to death's door with a powerful blow to the head. This is not the end, just another long beginning for mutants are still multiplying rapidly and are threading earth's peace. There is no rest, for dedicated no name killers.