Watcher on the Hill

         He was late. His first day at post and he was late; this would not look good on his record. Private First Class Scotty Borrs was huffing it double time through the morning electrical storm to report to his new post as a  Watcher on the Hill. Racing up the path that was made before he even entered boot camp, he passed twisted, rusting iron, pulverized concrete, angry shards of glass. The hill was all that remained of a once bustling port city in what used to be the state of North Carolina. Now it’s a trash heap in a state of disarray.

         Borrs tried not to think of the lives lost; he was just a young child during the height of the war. He ignored the twisting root that reminded him of bone and sinew. The only thing in his focus was the post. Damn the sweat. He’s already late. Even in the shadow of “the mountain” he was burning up.  The bunker was a small semi-circle, about ten feet at the apex, made out of cinderblocks stacked directly upon each other . It was roughly eight feet in height on the inside with a tin roof suspended by wooden posts. There was a large opening facing  “the mountain” so every point of the black monolithic structure could be seen. Cigarette butts almost acted as a carpet for the otherwise dusty wooden floor.

         “You’re late,” the sergeant said when Borrs finally arrived, but he never took his eyes from the mountain.

         “Sorry, Sir. My stomach was a mess, the chili we ate last night--”

         “You have a problem with your intestine, you take it to the nurse,” the sergeant interrupted, “Is there something wrong with your intestine, Borrs?”

         “No, Sir.”

         “Then have a seat,” Sarge’s voice was as sandy as the beach below, “Hope you brought a book.”

         Private Borrs sat and took his first real look at the mountain, “Wow.”

         “First time?” Sarge asked, finally looking at the private.

         “This close, yes, Sir.” Borrs had to lean over the bunker to even try to see the top of it, but it was hidden by low, flashing cloud cover. It had been for the past several years. The mountain wasn’t a mountain at all. It was a relic of war; a fallen ship that belonged to those that invaded the Earth twelve years ago. The outer hull barely even cracked upon impact, thankfully, due to an as of yet unknown metal alloy. Yet, a fire burned freely several thousand feet above the ground. The hull was an  iridescent black that reflected different shades of green and violet, reminding Pvt. Borrs of a raven.

         A fence encloses a fifty square mile perimeter around the shore where the ship crashed into the crust of the Earth. No one without proper credentials is to enter the field. There are three different gates, one to the north, one south, and one west. The east is patrolled by three different Nor-Am Nautmarine vessels.

         After the invasion, Canada, the United States and Mexico combined into a single nation, Unified America and their militaries combined under the North American Military Service, or Nor-Am, for short. The Navy became the Nautmarines, the Airforce became the Nor-Am Air Defense, and the Army and Marines combined into the Nor-Am Armarines.

         “Who is that?” Borrs asked.

         The sarge jumped up with his binoculars, “Shit,” he cursed, reaching for the radio, “Tommi, you got ‘im?” he called over the receiver. “Religious nut,” he said to Borrs.

         Borrs watched through his own set of glasses as a naked blonde man, who wore what looked to be a wrap of barbed wire about his head, approached the ship. “What’s he doing?” he asked.

         “He belongs to the Unversalist Church of the Once and Future Christ, a bunch of sad saps that think we stopped the second coming and damned everyone on Earth to Hell,” the sergeant said watching the zealot enter the ship through an opened door which was just above ground level, “Aw Hell, Tommi!”

         The radio crackled and a voice came through-- female to Borrs’s surprise, “I couldn’t get a clean shot. He’ll be back out soon enough.”

         “They always come out,” Sarge said to Borrs, before yelling into the radio, “But we can’t retrieve them after they come out!”

         Borrs chuckled a bit and peered back down at the sign of movement. The man was re-emerging, but his body was smoking. To Borrs’s horror the man’s flesh was boiling off of his bones. “Holy God!” Borrs yelled as the man’s head exploded, spilling once-gray matter to the ground. The private vomited over the side of the bunker as Tommi called back, “Got ‘im!”

         Sarge sat back and cursed, “Damn it all.” He noticed his new private, “Sit down, Borrs. Calm yourself.”

         “Y-yes, Sir.”

         “This your first post? Never seen any action, have you?”

         “No,” Borrs replied wiping his chin, “No, Sir, I haven’t.”

         “Its radiation,” the sergeant said, “That’s what burned him. We don’t know half of what’s inside that thing, ‘cause we can’t get closer than fifty feet without our best gear melting.”

         Borrs stared at the ship, at the boiling sea crashing around its base. He imagined the pain of his flesh turning bright pink, and then blistery red as the commander continued. “We think we won. We think we beat them but look around,” Sarge said, motioning to the sky, “Look at that lightening. Twice a day it does this. Do you even remember when it was cold in January? It’s eighty fucking degrees out here, Borrs.”

         The sergeant leaned back in his worn cracked leather chair, barely held together with black duct tape and lit a cigarette.  After a long drag from his smoke, the sergeant continued, “We didn’t win this. It aint even over, yet. You’ve heard of Pearl Harbor? The World Trade Center?”

         Borrs nodded.

         “The Japanese used what they called Kamikaze. Pilots would fly their planes so low they were sure to get shot down. But that was part of the plan. All for the country,” another drag, “The World Trade? Two jumbo jets,” Sarge used his hands to simulate two planes flying, “BOOM!”

         “I remember reading about that in school,” Borrs said.

         “That’s what they did. They Kamikazed our ass. They never planned to leave here. Look at the sky. They burned the fucking atmosphere!” Sarge scoffed and spit, “We’re sweating. In fucking January! We’re sweating.”

         A moment passed with the both of them pondering the future on this now possibly ruined planet. The sergeant never took his eyes from the ship for too long. Private Borrs looked at everything: the ship, the white waves, red sand and bodies strewn about the beach, pecked to near nothing by gulls and crabs.

         “Why doesn’t anyone bury those bodies?” Borrs finally asked.

         “Fuck those bodies. Too much radiation. Too much trouble,” the sergeant snatched the smoke from his mouth, “Do you know why we’re here?”

         Borrs really didn’t, “To keep people away from the ship?”

         “To watch that damned thing. We watch that ship twenty-four-seven, Borrs.”

         The rising sun cast enough light to illuminate the sergeant’s features and for the first time Borrs noticed how tired the man looked. Young, though, considering his voice and demeanor. The private originally thought the man to be fifty or better, but now was thinking more along the lines of forty. An old, tired forty.
         “Your file says you’re an artist.”

         Borrs cocked his head bewildered, “Excuse me, Sir?”

         “Do you or do you not practice art? Your file says you studied it in high school.”

         “Well, I mean, yea, I- I draw a lot and I paint whenever I get some free time.”

         “Good. Good. Tomorrow when you report in I want you to bring your supplies: paper, pencils, paint, what have you and I want you to paint me that ship,” the sergeant said.

         “Forgive me, Sir, but, why?”

“I want you to paint me a picture of that damn ship on that damn horizon,” the sergeant said with a waving gesture, “I figure, if you’re painting that thing, then your eyes are constantly moving to that hunk of shit, and that’s what I need; someone out here--” he grabbed the radio, “paying attention! So, tomorrow, you bring up what ever it is you need and get to work. Capice?”

         “Yes--sir.”

         “This is important, Borrs,” the sergeant said, pointing with his cigarette, “if you’d seen what those things do- what they’re capable of—“ the sergeants eyes glazed over as he recalled the horrors of his first encounter. In his mind, he was in D.C. all over again, running for his life and fighting to return here to his home. He still felt the texture of the creature’s skin.

Tommi’s voice returned over the radio, “Sarge!?”

         Borrs called at the same time, his eyes widened with dread, “Sergeant!”

         Sarge looked Southward through his binoculars to the direction Borrs was pointing as the report from Tommi’s rifle echoed across the shoreline, “Oh, Holy Fuck! Fire, Borrs! Fire!” he yelled as he reached for his radio. “Mayday, mayday! We’ve got a squad of Uni’s pressing on the hill. Request backup ASAP!”

         The sergeant dropped the radio and took aim with his nine millimeter. Borrs watched amazed as the sergeant dropped three of the aggressors in as many seconds. For a few seconds the private was too stunned to do anything. All he could do was watch.

         There were about fifty of them; a mob of men and women armed with pistols and rifles, dressed in tattered clothing, some with cloth wrapped around their head. All of them yelling something Borrs interpreted as, “Repent,” and “Sinners.”

Four of the sergeant’s  stiff fingers across his face brought the private back into the here and now and his training came back into his mind. He pulled his pistol and returned fire, taking out one or two of his own. As soon as he drew down on the mob, two jeeps came flying over the hill, barely avoiding the bunker. They sped over and around the mob, shouting orders of surrender, to which most complied.

         Borrs ran down to check the dead and wounded and found that his first kill was a young woman about the age of sixteen. He closed his eyes and ran his hands along his head in guilty disbelief. His eyes began to burn with welling tears and his throat grew sore from a stifled scream.

         The sergeant came up from behind and looked down at the girl, “This aint your fault, son. No matter how you feel right now, this isn’t on you. You didn’t brainwash that kid. You didn’t raise her into a death cult. All you did was protect yourself and your fellow countrymen.”

         “Then why do I feel like shit, Sarge?”

         “Because you’re human, son,” Sarge said, resting a hand on the private’s shoulder, “Hell, if you were perfectly fine, I’d be sending you back for a psyche eval.” The sergeant pulled Borrs' arm to help the private to his feet and handed him a small radio, "Instead, I'm gonna send you back with these fine gents to the field base, where you are to approach the commander and radio me upon arrival."

         "Sarge?" Borrs asked, confused, but received no reply.

         "You catch that, Murray?" the sergeant was speaking to one of the other soldiers, "He is to go directly to the commander. Any unnecessary delay and I will march myself up there and start my investigation as to why he was delayed with you. Am I clear?"

         "Crystal fucking clear, Sarge," Murray responded through a smile. Murray looked to Borrs, "Come on, Green, there's a truck on the way for these A-holes, and they aint going  anywhere til it gets here. Trust me."

         Borrs climbed in the passenger seat of the Humvee and they drove away as Sarge turned back to his bunker.

         Murray turned to Borrs with a widening smile, "The day just got longer for you, Pal."