I see them often, in the impersonal green haze of night vision.
Lying on their backs, heads bare, surrounded by darkness. I can see the one closest to me clearly, the shade of the other one just past him. Every few seconds the percussion washes over me as they desperately try to stop the bullets from violating their bodies. He's so close to me, I scream at him to grab my hand. Fragments of rock and metal pepper me in the face and body, but I only felt them as an afterthought. He reaches far enough that I grab him, hand to hand, and I pull hard. Fatigue has set in as adrenaline fades, and I'm stretched so far I can't get any purchase to pull against. Finally, something smashes into my leg, the sting and impact forcing a wave of angry heat over my face, and I feel the cold night air against my shoulders. The lasers on their guns wave around wildly, and they jump and dash around as the weapons fire at everything in every direction. Tim and I back away as he screams into my ear that its not worth it and pulls me from the corner. I can see the mouth of death yawning around them as we move back to the building.
Minutes later, as I sort the living into wounded and still useful, I look around the corner to see where Tim is. He's on a knee with a body in front of him. The man I had by the hand had crawled out to safety. Tim whispers to me as he reaches out, "This guy's fucking dead man." We drag his body to safety. His comrades reach out to hold his hand, and tells me he may still be alive. I grab him by the arm, and tell him I'm sorry, but he's dead, and there are still more dying. I need help, and I feel desperately alone as Tim and I work to find the rest.
Minutes later a man stumbles out, holding his neck. I grab him and drag him to the relative safety of the building. The bullet went in his mouth, and came out the back of his neck. The bones in his neck are showing, venting his precious heat into the chilled night air. I can't believe he lived that long with such a gaping hole in the most precious and delicate of parts. More so, he walked out on his own power... This hard mother fucker!
Brian treats him, I can hear him yelling at them, "Don't wrap the bandage around his fucking neck!" Finally, some more dudes arrive. They mount the building, and I grab the last two healthy guys I could find.
I key the radio, and say "fire." Like a short sputtering engine it starts, pop pop, then the most delicious orgasmic combination of sonic waves beat in my body like war drums as a dozen weapons go off all at once. The tracer fire streams over me like a meteor shower, smashing the building and flying in a thousand different directions, bright and glorious in the night. I scream at the two in front of me. "GO! GO!" as I shove them into the mouth of death. They reach the last body, and stand over him, unsure of what to do, surrounded by the sound and feel of fury raging through our bodies. I reach down and grab the body by the shoulder strap of his equipment, "GRAB HIM! FUCKING GRAB HIM! GO!" They grab him as I scream at them to pull him to safety. "KEEP FIRING!" I scream into the radio and blast a magazine into the window for good measure as they drag the body past me.
We drag him to Brian, who leans over him and assesses him. He's still alive. He is still fucking alive. His abdomen is punched through in 3 or 4 places, and his right leg flops around unnaturally. Brian cuts his pant leg open to reveal a single hole, a single thin stream of blood running down his ghost white flesh. He was startlingly cold to the touch. The bullet smashed his femur into pieces. We tourniquet his leg, and I scream at those around me to lift him onto my back.
I carry him to a ladder, but I'm desperately fatigued. It takes every ounce of my energy to crawl up this rickety bamboo ladder. The whole time I bob and sway, trying not to fall under the cumulative weight of 400 pounds of flesh and equipment between he and I. I can hear him, moaning and groaning breathily into my ear as I struggle and grunt and pant. I can't make it up the hill. Tim takes him the rest of the way. He dies there.