Sex and Murder Magazine

By Dev Jarrett

Stepping off the air-conditioned bus into the street, the sauna heat hit Jason like a slap, giving lie to the idea of evening cool. To him, it felt just as hot now as it had when he was working on the generators during the day, just without the sun digging claws into the back of his neck. The rest of the guys in his unit were already heading toward their favorite bars, the Colonel's order of going nowhere without a "battle buddy" forgotten as soon as they'd caught the bus.

Having a battle buddy when on Liberty was a good safety measure, but damn. What's a battle buddy supposed to do while you're getting your crank polished? Watch? Besides, this one strip of Fields Avenue was the only place they were allowed to go, unless they went to the big mall down the road. If trouble were to show her face, backup was always nearby.

Last weekend, when they'd been afforded their first Liberty, he'd gone to the mall, and been unimpressed. Even way out here in the third world, a mall was a mall was just a fucking mall. He'd gotten some cheap bootleg software, and went to a fast food restaurant just so he could say he'd gotten a Big Mac for a handful of pesos worth less than a dollar.

This weekend, he went with the rest of the guys.

This stretch of Fields Avenue was designed for sating the appetite, for satisfying whatever hunger a hot-blooded young soldier felt. Ratty little restaurants and bars stood beside smaller buildings with no signs over the doors. The sidewalk in front of the restaurants advertised their menus with large easels, while in front of the bars, the waves of loud, strange music spilled into the street. Many of the unmarked doorways had heavyset men sitting before them in folding metal chairs.

As Jason watched, a soldier went from the bus directly to one of the low, unmarked doors, approaching one of the seated men. They spoke a few words, the soldier gave the man some money, and the soldier was allowed to duck through the door.

"Specialist Pringle!"

Jason turned at his name being called, and for a moment didn't recognize the burly man in the cargo shorts and the Longboard Lager t-shirt. He'd never seen his boss in civvies.

"Sar'n' Lyons."

Sergeant Lyons was his supervisor, and since they'd been in country, Jason had noticed a strange shift in the way the man acted. He seemed constantly amped, joyful and furious at the same time, boiling beneath his skin. Several times in the last few days he'd noticed Sergeant Lyons just looking at people with an odd, speculative grin on his face. It creeped him out.

"This must be your first time here! Let me give you some advice. I was here last year for about six months, so I know what the fuck I'm talking about. You stand there with your mouth open like a fish out of water; you'll bring all kinds of shit down on yourself. Courtesy Patrol, thieves, pimps, whatever. Just pick a bar and go have a few San Migs, then go find a girl! They'll do whatever you want, and it's cheap!"

"Roger, Sar'n'." he said, and shuffled off.

The place he ended up going to was "Blue Thunder," and he assumed it was industry-standard for Fields Avenue bars. A few tables were scattered around the room, most of them occupied with soldiers and bar girls, and on the far side of the room was the actual bar. At the end of the bar was a raised platform where blank-faced bikini-clad Filipinas danced wearily around poles. The oldest one on stage looked about fifteen.

As he walked through the room to an empty table, he gained the notice of several girls standing against the wall. They rushed over, smiling and eager.

"Oh, sir! Hey Mister! Sir! Hey, you buy me drink? Sir?"

Jason looked at them, unsure of what to do. Finally, he just waved them away and said, "No thanks." They backed off, except for one or two that were especially desperate.

He ignored them, just listening to the music while drinking his beer. The music was a pidgin Tagalog cover of a Nine Inch Nails song, and the nasal voice with its rapid, jingly speech made the tortured lyrics of the song sound comical.

As the last throbbing sounds of the guitar faded, the song segued into some Europop tangle of drums and synth that Jason couldn't place at all. He ordered another beer and drank it quickly.

One of the girls by the wall kept making eye contact with him. She was pretty, and he smiled at her. She came to his table, sat down, and they exchanged names. Her lipstick was heavily applied and bright red. She ordered them more drinks, and this time his beer came in a much larger glass, and her drink was some kind of carbonated fruit punch.

She teased him, and touched him, and encouraged him to drink faster as she groped him. Whatever. That was part of her job. Sell the booze. The music changed again, to a throbbing hard rock song he knew he should recognize, but couldn't. His mind had already begun moving more slowly, the beer causing instances of crystalline clarity in a wobbly taffy pull of unreality. Although he knew what the bar girl was doing, he let it happen anyway. That's what Liberty was for, after all. They drank, and he got drunk, and they left the Blue Thunder together. She held him close to her by putting a hand in the waistband of his pants.

From an alley, back in the dark, he heard a baby. It sounded horrible. Not just the usual colicky crying of a child, but terrified screams that sounded as though they damaged vocal cords with their violence. He stopped, looking into the alley.

"What is that noise?"

She tugged at his trousers. "Nothing. It's tiyanak. Nothing. Forget about it."

Jason figured "tiyanak" meant "baby."

"Shouldn't we go help?"

"You go see tiyanak, you'll need help."

She jerked him from the mouth of the alley, and with a final look back into the darkness, he allowed himself to be urged away.

He walked with her as she led him to one of the unmarked doors on the roadside. The door where they stopped was guarded by a bulldog of a man, with a huge torso and short legs. Jason took out his wallet and paid with American Dollars. The bulldog man and the girl exchanged some words in Tagalog that to Jason sounded like bonga-bonga-bonga-bong, then she led him into the plywood and tin hovel.

When his eyes got used to the dimness, he saw that they were in a hallway that smelled of spoiled food, sweat, and old sex. The girl pulled him down the narrow corridor fitfully lit by strings of tiny white Christmas tree lights, passing ill-fitting plank doors or towels stretched across doorways. From the cells they passed, Jason heard the animal gruntings of rutting beasts punctuated by occasional feminine cries that may or may not have been genuine pleasure.

They entered the girl's cell, far down on the right, through a moldy wool blanket folded over a two-by-four. The cell had a mixed pile of clothes on the floor, a cot, and a pair of cinderblocks that served as a nightstand. A crayon drawing was tacked to one wall. Without a word, she pulled him over to the cot. He sat down, and she knelt on the floor between his legs. The rumpled sheets were stiff with dried fluids, but her hands and mouth were expert, and Jason soon closed his eyes and lost himself in the carnal sensations. He leaned back against the damp plywood wall, and when she finally took him out of her mouth and finished him with her hand, he squeezed his eyes shut and hissed through gritted teeth as he came.

He panted as he slouched against the wall. She fastidiously wiped him off. Jason opened his eyes and looked across the wall into the corner, where the plywood board he leaned on joined the next wall.

There was a tiny space between the boards, nothing more than a crack. Jason began to get the strangest feeling of paranoia, like someone was looking at him. The girl was preoccupied with preparing for her next exploit, looking into a compact as she reapplied her lipstick.

The wall behind him suddenly vibrated and screeched as claws were dragged across the naked grain of the wood. From the corner crack came the horrible screaming baby sound again.

"Shit!" Jason jumped up from the cot, knocking the girl back on her ass as he yanked his pants up from around his ankles. Her lipstick dug a bright red streak across her cheek, then broke.

"You're assho'!" she yelled. Her eyes held nothing but contempt for him, and he noticed a tiny droplet of semen glistening like a pearl in her hair. "You scared of baby? Fuck you! Get out, assho', let tiyanak get you!"

He buttoned up, shoved the blanket aside and lumbered down the dim corridor to the door. He staggered through the doorway, and the bulldog man stood with a quickness surprising in such a disproportionate frame. The man pointed down the street with one hand.

"Bonga-bonga-bong!"

"Yeah, yeah, fuck you too, I'm going!" Jason barked back.

The man pulled a knife from his boot. It was no more than a shingle of sharpened metal with electrical tape wrapped around it as a handle, but it looked wickedly sharp in the glow of the streetlamps.

Jason ran into the street and was nearly crushed by an overloaded jeepney full of wooden crates, plastic bags, and old men. It swerved and blatted its horn at him, and he somehow arrived at the opposite sidewalk in one piece. He turned to look at the bulldog man, but only saw the door of the whorehouse closing, and the empty chair on the sidewalk.

From the alley, the renewed screaming of the terrified baby made him jump. He stepped into the alley to see just what these people were doing to their babies, and a hand clapped onto his shoulder.

"Speshlis Pringle," a voice slurred. "iss nearly pumpkin time." He tapped his watchless wrist and smiled.

Sergeant Lyons was more drunk than Jason. Way more drunk, but his hand had a grip like a vise. "I uz in the bar next to you, an' I saw you come out. Come on, now. We gotta get back on the bus. Curfew's in twenty minutes."

Sergeant Lyons pulled him out of the alley while the baby's shrieks continued. He looked into the alley's shadows himself for a moment, and Jason saw his eyebrows knit with concern. He turned away muttering, dragging Jason to the bus.

Back inside the base perimeter, Sergeant Lyons dragged Jason to the hotel bar next door to the billeting facility. Sergeant Lyons refused to listen to Jason's protests, but pulled him to a table and sat across from him. He ordered a six pack of Cerveza Negra to be sent to the table, then looked Jason in the eye.

"Speshlis' Pringle, the rest of the beer's on me tonight. I gotta talk, and I need someone to lissen. I tol' you I was here lass year, right?"

"Roger, Sar'n'." Jason said. He was torn. Even though he was already drunk and wanted to go to sleep, this sort of bonding with his NCO might help him somehow down the road. He decided to sit still and listen to the drunk weirdo. He could nurse one beer while he let the Sergeant vent, or perform his confession, or whatever it was.

"I met this girl down on Fields." He snorted, "Sure, right, what the fuck else you going to do on Liberty? She was a bar girl, and I'uz a dumbass. Her name was Analyn, and she was just smokin' hot. Every time I got Liberty, I went straight to 'er. We got drunk, we fucked all the time, an' she told me that she loved me and wanted me to take 'er to America. I just rolled with it."

Jason watched Sergeant Lyons's red eyes. They focused on the lip of the beer bottle before him while his mind was apparently focused on the alcohol-stirred memories. The Sergeant continued.

"I mean, I'd heard of it before, going out, meetin' one of the locals, and bringing home a heritage honey. Hell, most'a the senior NCOs in the Company have Korean wives they met when they were stationed in Seoul. So I didn't think anything else about it. Sure, whatever, I'll bring you home with me. So she goes all fuckin' crazy and gets pregnant, and tells me it's mine and I need to see the old lady that holds her contract as a whatchacallit...Guest Relations Officer. Y'know, thass what they call a bar girl." He took a deep breath and a long pull off the beer in front of him.

"So, fine, whatever, I go see the old lady, and she drops a fuckin' bomb on me. She says it'll cost five grand to buy out Analyn's contract. Five grand! No fuckin' way! But now she's pregnant, and like I said, she's gone completely fuckin' nuts, and won't listen to anything I've got to say. As far as she's concerned, she's got me, and I'm her ticket out of bein' a bar hooker. All she wants me to do is get the damned money to buy her! She threatens to come up here and talk to the Colonel, and that just fuckin' sets me off. I took her back in the alley and beat the shit out of her. I was drunk out of my mind at the time, and I'd never do it sober, but shit! She put her goddamned hooks so deep in me just by fuckin' me and letting herself get knocked up! She did it!"

Sergeant Lyons finished off his beer and started on another.

"What happened, Sar'n'?"

The NCO rubbed his eyes, then left his hand there. The lower half of his face was in shadow, and he took a long time to answer.

"I don't know. Nothing, I guess. I left her in the alley, and went back to base. I didn't go back out to Fields the rest of the time I was here, and I never heard from her. I was afraid she'd show up at the Colonel's office with the local cops, but she never did. Now we're back here, and even though I know it's stupid, I've been looking for her. I went out there last weekend, and tonight, and she's not out there anymore."

Jason sucked in a breath. "Do you think you--"

Sergeant Lyons moved his hand and looked up at him. Jason saw violence in those drunken eyes. "You think I could do that, Speshliss? Kill her? Maybe she just went back home. That has to be what happened. So what does that leave? I'm free."

Sergeant Lyons sat for a long time, looking into the empty bottle in his hand. After a while, his eyelids slipped shut. His breathing grew deeper, and soon Jason was convinced that Sergeant Lyons had passed out sitting there. He chucked him on the shoulder.

The Sergeant opened his eyes, and a roguish smile crept into his face. His bleary eyes were squinting.

"Lock that one away, Speshliss, okay? No one needs to hear about that. Ever. An' if anyone does hear about it, right after that I'll have a new story about how I killed you with my bare fuckin' hands. We unnerstand each other?"

"Roger, Sar'n'."

Jason went straight to his room, his head thundering. He'd always heard about NCOs having their old war stories, but this was beyond the pale. What kind of screwed up Sergeant did he have? Jason clipped his shin on the desk chair as he tried to undress in the dark. His roommate, some Intel puke, was asleep in the next bunk and didn't stir as Jason thumped around in the dark. He undressed, got into bed, and despite his stress, he fell asleep immediately. Through the night he was tormented by the echoing sound of the crying, screaming baby, and when he awoke the next morning, he was hung over all to hell. Puking helped a little.

By lunchtime, the sick throb of his hangover was beginning to fade. He went to chow, sitting alone at one of the long tables in the lunchroom. Local boys in the black trousers and white shirts of wait staff stood with steel water pitchers in their hands, occasionally circulating through the room to refill glasses. Just as Jason finished his salad, Sergeant Lyons came in carrying a plate loaded with food. His cargo pocket bulged with three canned sodas. The cans held the pocket open wide, a huge Velcro-lipped mouth on his leg. He unloaded the pocket onto the table, then sat down across from Jason.

"Dude, you were so fuckin' hammered last night! How are you feelin' today?"

"I'm okay, I guess, Sergeant. How are you feeling?"

"Specialist, I blacked out completely! I don't even remember getting on the bus to come back to base." The bright gleam in his eye could have been honest good humor, but to Jason it held a barely concealed threat of violence. Jason knew he was lying. "I don't even have a hangover, which is good because I hear they're going to give us Liberty again tonight!"

"Ugh, I don't know if I'm up to it."

"Horseshit, Specialist." he pointed the tines of his fork at Jason, "You're going. Get fucked, and get fucked up. That's what Liberty is for. Unless the Colonel says different, I'll see you on the bus at nineteen hundred." Jason knew he'd either be there or Sergeant Lyons would hunt him down. Despite the threat he'd made last night, Sergeant Lyons probably wanted to be able to obligate Jason some other way. Jason knew he'd have to show up tonight, but he'd also have to be careful.

"Roger, Sar'n'." Jason sighed.

Jason picked at the rest of his meal while Sergeant Lyons wolfed down his food, guzzled his drinks, then jumped up from the table.

"See you later, young'un." he said to Jason with a grin, then trotted out of the lunchroom.

One of the waiters came to the table to pick up Sergeant Lyons' plate and empty cans, and spoke to Jason.

"Would you like some water, sir?"

"Yeah, thanks."

The young man disappeared with the used plate and utensils, then returned shortly with one of the dented steel pitchers of water.

"'Scuse me," Jason said, "I heard something last night, and I was told it was 'tiyanak.' What does that mean?"

"Sir, tiyanak, it is a story monster, to scare little children. It means, um, something like 'demon baby.' You see, the tiyanak lies in wait, then cries like a baby. Someone comes to see, to help, and the tiyanak attacks them. It lures them off the path, then eats them up."

"What I heard did sound like a baby."

The youth snickered. "Then you heard a baby. Tiyanak is just pretend. It's a story to keep children from wandering off into the jungle. Don't be scared, sir."

"I'm not scared, but it was creepy. It sounded like someone was killing that baby. And it sounded like it had claws or something."

The smile ran from the kid's narrow face. "It's nothing, sir. Pretend. The story says it is the spirit of a child whose mother was killed before giving birth, and the spirit wants vengeance. You didn't kill anybody, did you sir?"

"You think I could do that, Speshliss?"

Before Jason could answer, the youth smiled, "I am kidding, sir! Relax! You heard only a baby!"

The Saturday workday ended early, and the Colonel allowed Liberty again. Before going to sign out by the bus stop, Jason went to the chow hall again. He'd once heard that eating a lot of bread kept a person from getting too drunk. The bread would supposedly soak up the alcohol of the beer. He figured he needed any edge he could get, so he stuffed a few slices into his mouth, and washed them down with a glass of water.

On Fields Avenue, the situation was the same as the night before, except that now Jason had Sergeant Lyons as his "battle buddy." The Sergeant kept pace with him, not speaking much, but looking ahead into the honky tonk twilight.

On the sidewalk, they went a couple of blocks down from the bus stop before they heard the unnerving screaming baby noise they'd heard the night before.

"What the fuck is that racket? I heard it last night, and last weekend, too." Sergeant Lyons said, stopping to peer down a darkened alley.

"A demon baby." said Jason.

"A demon baby?"

Jason nodded. "They call it tiyanak."

"Demon baby, huh? Shit."

They went up the street until Sergeant Lyons dragged him into a bar whose logo looked like a road sign that said "Route 66" in blue neon and had a picture of a girly version of Bugs Bunny leaning on it in a skimpy bikini.

An AC/DC song was blaring from the speakers, but the vocals had been redubbed with a Filipino voice, and it just sounded weird.

Inside, Jason noticed the same bored-looking girls doing their same disinterested bump and grind while GIs got drunk and cheered them on. Sergeant Lyons pulled him to a table and ordered drinks, and a few of the bar girls, according to their mandate, came over and started in with their "Sir! You buy me drink?" routine.

Sergeant Lyons encouraged a few of them, whispering to them and giving them some money.

They turned from Sergeant Lyons and crowded around Jason. One sat on either side of him, and one sat on his lap, giggling. Before he was even able to react, the one on his lap laid a big, wet kiss on him. The other two held his hands against their chests, giving him a quick squeeze of their small breasts.

White flashed in the room, and Sergeant Lyons laughed as he put the camera away in his breast pocket. "Ooo, that'll look good in next month's Family Support Group Newsletter! Specialist Pringle, getting a feel for foreign cultures!"

Jason tossed the girl off his lap and stood. "Knock it off, Sar'n'! What the fuck are you trying to do, blackmail me into keeping your little secret? Trying to get a little dirt on me? It won't work. I don't give a shit about these bar tramps."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, tough guy! Drink your drink so we can get another! These are just souvenirs for you, so next year you can brag about your exploits to some new joe."

"Fuck you, I'm out of here!"

Sergeant Lyons planted his hand in Jason's chest, and pushed. "Sit. Finish your drink. I ordered it special for you. It's called A Phone Call From God, and they say no one can drink more than three of them. Just give it a try, and everything will work itself out. I might even pay one of those girls to spend the night with you, if you want. Come on, drink up, it's alcohol. It's good for you. Kills the germs."

His words were conversational, but his tone brooked no discussion. When he saw that Jason wasn't interested, he waved the girls away, and picked up his drink.

"Here's how this is going to go. I've got this rather embarrassing picture of you with these girls. If you piss me off, something very bad is going to happen to one of them, and after that happens, this little picture will get printed out and circulated all over the place. I bet someone would get pretty pissed at you for that. So we're even now, right? You've got something on me, and I've got something on you. See? Like brothers or something!"

He smiled, took a long sip of his drink, then sat back. Jason's mind was racing. His preparation for the night had been worthless. Tonight wasn't about him doing something stupid. It was about him being in a situation where it might look like he did something stupid. Or crazy. He'd taken the bait, and now Sergeant Lyons had him hooked.

Jason picked up his glass and took tiny sips of the concoction in it. The music changed to a goofy reggae version of "Only the Good Die Young," and the waitress came over with fresh Phone Calls for each of them.

They sat, and didn't talk, and drank. Jason finished one of his at the same time Sergeant Lyons was beginning his third one. Sergeant Lyons watched and hooted at the underage girls standing on the stage. Jason only watched Sergeant Lyons, and despite his focus growing dull, he knew the only thing that could save him was to get the camera from his NCO.

Finally, Sergeant Lyons got bored watching the same girls doing the same moves. He finished off his drink, threw some money on the table, and went to the front of the bar.

"Goddamn, Specialist, hurry up. Come on."

Jason got up and went to the open door, out into the hot Filipino night. It was now full dark, with most of the illumination on the street coming from overhead neon signs.

He walked after Sergeant Lyons, who was staggering up the sidewalk. The NCO stopped in an orange spill of light. Jason saw the bulge of the camera in his breast pocket, and got an idea. No camera, no picture. Sergeant Lyons beckoned to him, and looked at the bars' signs on either side of the alley as Jason approached him.

Rather than reach into the pocket for the camera, Jason planned to simply tear the whole pocket off his shirt and rip ass out of there. He might get beaten up, but that was preferable to Sergeant Lyons having any sort of hold on him.

His hand shot out, and a single clap sounded as his wrist slapped right into Sergeant Lyons's open hand.

"How drunk do you think I am?" Lyons growled at him, "I was just bringing you down here to show you something."

"What?"

Sergeant Lyons held his wrist still with one hand, and pointed down the alley with the other. Trash barrels, crates, and abandoned scrap pieces of motor trikes littered the broken pavement. "This alley. This is where it happened."

"Sar'n', Goddamn! Why are you telling me this?"

The baby's voice screamed nearby, the saliva-curdling shrieks of torture echoed out of the dim alley they faced.

Jason looked into his eyes and saw something feral and dangerous. The glint in his eyes, the reflection of the orange glow of the bar signs, showed an eagerness Jason had not seen before. He yanked backward to free his wrist, but he may as well have been yanking on a bus.

"I just wanted to show you where I killed that worthless little bar slut."

Killed? Oh shit! Jason knew now that he was in serious danger. Sergeant Lyons didn't have any interest in blackmailing Jason to silence. Sergeant Lyons killed a girl. He beat her to death.

"I thought you said you loved her."

It was plain that Sergeant Lyons was disturbed. He'd killed. He'd gotten away with it.

"I thought I did love her. Fucking her was nice. But right back there," he pointed down the alley, "when I could just turn loose on her? Hoowee, now that was love. That was better than love! It was the ultimate. She was bitching, so I hit her. Then she shut up. I hit her again, and she didn't do anything! It's like she knew she deserved it. I hit her again and again, and after that, all she wanted was to get away. I hit her some more, and then she couldn't even do that. You can't imagine what that's like. The feeling of power was un-fucking-real."

He'd killed. And he'd liked it.

"You're sick."

"You think?" The saliva shone on his grinning teeth. "Come here, let me show you where I slammed her head against the wall." He started into the alley, dragging Jason behind him. Jason kicked his knees out from under him, and although Sergeant Lyons fell, he never loosened his grip on Jason's wrist.

The NCO picked himself up and laughed, his face unreadable in the dimness. "Nice try, dumbass. You telling me you're pregnant? I killed you. I'll kill you. I can't afford to buy out your contract, you stupid bitch! I'll fuckin' kill you if you don't shut up. I killed you. Killed her. You..."

From behind a steel oil drum, the hideous baby screech sounded again. The noise broke through Sergeant Lyons's disjointed ramblings, and his head snapped left, to the source of the sound.

Lying on the ground behind the trash barrel was a baby. In the dimness of the alley, Jason saw only feebly kicking arms and legs, wrapped in a wad of filth. Sergeant Lyons let go of Jason's hand, and bent to pick up the baby. The baby's hair-raising screams stopped.

"Well what the fuck is this?"

He was gonna kill me, so what's he gonna do with a baby? Jason didn't want to think about it. He stood, watching and waiting, but Sergeant Lyons seemed to be a completely different person than he had been even a moment ago.

"What's going on, little one?" he spoke to the baby.

He turned so that the baby's face was visible by the lights out on the street. He cuddled it close. "Don't you worry, we'll find your Momma."

"Mamma...Dadda..."

The baby shifted, reaching its fragile little hand up to Sergeant Lyons's lower lip. Sergeant Lyons snickered, and turned around.

Jason looked at the baby, and suddenly realized that it wasn't actually a baby.

tiyanak

Its tiny hand, not fragile as it had appeared before, shot deep into Sergeant Lyons's mouth, and into his throat. The fingers of its other hand sprouted huge claws. Jason saw Sergeant Lyons's neck muscles convulse as his gag reflex took over, trying to expel the baby-thing's hand and forearm. The NCO pushed the thing away from his body with his hands, but it appeared to have grasped something inside his throat. His eyes opened so wide it looked like they were going to fall out. His muffled scream was terror and agony.

"Mmmff...mmm....MMMFFF!"

The baby-thing smiled in recognition.

"Dadda."

It opened its mouth like a bear trap, impossibly wide, showing rows and rows of needle teeth. It turned its tiny head to the side of Sergeant Lyons's neck, and bit down with a gristle-crushing crunch.

"MMMFFFF!!!"

The scream trailed off as he crumpled to the ground, his neck jetting hot blood.

The tiyanak's eyes found Jason's. It snickered at him, its mouth dripping blood and gobbets of flesh, and he screamed. Jason's feet finally came unglued from the pavement, and he ran toward the idling bus. He knew he should tell someone, but no one would believe him. In his head he heard the waiter and Sergeant Lyons, their disparate stories weaving in and out until they were one.

spirit of an unborn child

I killed her here

seeking vengeance

Dadda

Jason jumped onto the bus and ran to the very rear seat. He panted and wept, hyperventilating in panic. He was freezing in the summer heat, and scalded with self-loathing. The bus driver glanced up into his rearview mirror at Jason, then shook his head and returned to his newspaper.

Jason looked out the bus window, finally seeing things as they truly were. Desperate Filipinas offered themselves to soldiers for brief moments in exchange for a few dollars and softly spoken lies. Jason, disgusted with himself, felt suddenly nauseous. He was terrified and sickened by what he'd seen, but more than that, he was sickened by what he'd done and what he'd allowed himself to become. He felt nothing for Sergeant Lyons--the asshole deserved what he got--but he wondered if any of these bar girls ever truly got what they wanted from life.

A few might, but fairy tale endings were probably few and far between.

Most never would never escape.

And Liberty?

Only the dead would ever truly find Liberty.















































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