Chapter 1: A Marine On Duty Has No Friends

I took a drag on my cigarette, staring up at the night sky. I was on duty. You know the meme. “A Marine on duty has no friends.”

They still haven't told me what I’m guarding. They probably never will. I don’t have the “need to know.” This despite the massive SF-86 I filled out, the interview, the investigations. And the polygraph. They still seem to think those work. Not that it was anything to me. It’s not like I need to leak anything for internet clout, and Warthunder never focuses on the day to day bullshit of military life anyways.

I was so caught up in my thoughts, I failed to see the dark shape approaching, stalking through the night like a spectral hag. Or in this case, an eighteen year old Lance Corporal.

Mind if I bum one?”She asks. It’s normal smokeshack etiquette to answer yes. So I hand her one of my cowboy killers. You used to be able to get Luckies at the PX, and for cheaper than crap like Newports would cost off-base. They changed that a while back. Now you pay the same or more as you do off-base. “It’s for the Marine’s health,” like my last duty station wasn’t a literal superfund site. The black mold in the barracks is more likely to kill me than the Marlboroughs, and even those are miles above what they went through generations past with experimental Gulf War drugs and Agent Orange in Vietnam.

She takes a drag on the cigarette. Same uniform as me, same chevron with the crossed rifles for rank. Same eight-point left on the railing of the gazebo, the smokeshack. But she’s different. She has the need to know, for this unit. Which is pretty important; it gets cold here in the winter and she gets to work inside.

They haven’t said the specifics, but anyone can tell what goes on here isn’t normal.

“Busy night?” I ask.

“Not too bad. It’s a waxing gibbeus.”

I look up. The moon, mostly full, drowns out a swatch of stars with its light. Just off on peak of activity for the unit. The new moon is another time, where they get tasked with lots of work.

“Did you hear about the health and comfort the other week?”

“Yes, but I just got off leave. My brother’s wedding.”She added.

“They made us help. They found some wild shit in Wood’s room.”

“Oh?”

“Jars of dirt, some bits of rope, broken forged nails…”

“Wood’s gonna get NJP’d. She should know not to take stuff from the jobsite. She better hope Gunny goes easy on her. Especially with the hangman’s rope. That doesn't come cheap, even with the contract we have with Texas’s corrections department.” She let out a sigh.

“She’s claiming she bought it all on her own. She’s threatening to take it to court martial, to try and get them to drop it.”A lot of commanding officers will drop an article 13, a “non-judicial punishment (NJP),” rather than waste the time and effort putting together a court martial.

“Not without outright theft The only reason they aren’t doing anything more severe is that they don't want to make a big stink.”

“Not as big of a stink as some of the other things we pulled out of her room.”

“That’s just how the job goes. She is one of the best with the more…stereotypical aspects of the craft. Double double toil and trouble and all that nonsense.”

“Hey, I don’t know anything about it.”

“After what happened your first day here?”

“I know nuffink, I see nuffink, I smell nuffink.”

“If you say so, LCpl Shultz.” She laughed in a manner far removed from the cackling normally associated with her job. Then she stubbed out her cigarette and went back to the jobsite. At least, everyone around here just calls it that.

I linger at the smokeshack longer than I really should. It’s a nice night, with a touch of chill in the air that makes the cigarette taste all the better. It’s getting close to midnight, but the large moon rising further into the night sky seems to invigorate me. Maybe this place is starting to influence me. It’s almost the witching hour, after all.

And speak of the Devil, and He will appear. I know far too much now to take such sayings lightly. But I’m slightly on edge when I hear a door open up on second deck, and hear the tromping of boots down the catwalk towards the ladderwell, or stairs. A dark shape can be seen… Hm, that happens around here a lot, actually.

Soon enough the figure emerges from the gloom of the barracks entrance, and creeps towards the smokeshack like fog in a winter night. In a voice haggard and frail, from arguing, it speaks.

“How’s it going, Shultz?”

“Better than you’re doing, Wood.”

“Despite being off duty, Wood was still in uniform. I guess her punishment went through after all. She was Private Wood now, something that tickled my immature sense of humor. If I have to put up with all the Hogan’s Heroes references, when I’m not even a Sergeant yet, She can stomach a few jokes about wood. This place is practically a stalag, so the useless person standing around all the time should be name Shultz.

That said, at least I’m not Wood.

“I swear Gunny has it out for me! I was just doing a bit of a research project. It’s not like anyone got hurt, unlike that time Cavendish played around with that Goetia. You remember that, right? Your head got all weird and you projectile vomited on Doc.”

I honestly cannot fathom how this girl managed to make it through boot camp. Her hygiene is questionable, she can’t read social cues to save her life, and she really sucks at the whole “following orders” thing that the Marines Corps is fond of. I understand that this unit has special circumstances, but some of the girls and guys here are a bit… Well, it doesn’t need to be said. I suppose it goes hand in hand with the unusual nature of whatever the hell they’re doing over there in the SCIF. Or the job site, as they call it.

The mere fact that they managed to find a place so remote in what I strongly suspect is New England is a marvel in itself to me. This place is weird, and it’s clear that I’m still an outsider despite the billet I ostensibly fill and the friendly interactions I have with the rest of the unit. I’ve been complaining about it and I still will complain about it. It’s what Lance Corporals do; we bitch about things. It’s a very convenient way to pass the time.

You may also argue, “should I really be complaining about being at one of the few units in the Marines with such and absurdly high female to male ratio? Well, as I said, the people here are weird. Yes, wood is the worst by far, but Ié been having enough weird shit happen to last me a lifetime, and I’ve only been here two months so far. And don't let me keep you, because yet another one of them is coming to the smoke shack.

“Wood, Shultz.” She gives a terse greeting. She really isn’t the most verbose. At least nor normally. She’s actually a few years older than me, at 1. Which should be obvious from the half-drunk Blue Point Toasted lager dangling from her hands. Oh no, she’s started already.

“Smith.” I responded cautiously. Every unit has at least one Smith.

“Hey.” Wood greets the newcomer as well, still sullen from the day’s earlier events. Specifically her ninja-punch, her NJP.

“You really managed to fuck up, didn’t you Wood.” For someone only a couple years older than us she really seemed to try and play the role of an older sister. Sometimes it was nice but it could grate at times. Especially once you learned her true nature.

“It was just a simple experiment.”

“Experiment my ass! Who the fuck were you trying to curse with the shit they took out of your room?”She took a long swig of her beer, tossed it in a nearby trash can, and pulled another from God know were. I’m serious, it looked like it just appeared in her hand. She used a MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program) belt buckle on her key-chain to pop the top off the bottle, then took a long swig,. Her cheeks began to color, and at that moment I truly began to know fear, a biting fear that gnaws at the edges of your soul and threatens to drag you down to the rotting abyss.

“Wood, your problem is that you’re too obsessed with that dark shit. Try finding something lighter for your inspiration. If you want I have some blu-rays I can lend you. Pull your head out of those musty tomes and read something fresh.” Her words were starting to slur as she pulled a volume of manga out from somewhere and thrust it at the bewildered private. I briefly caught a glimpse of a bubbly pink title on the cover. More magical girl crap. But it’s not the worse thing about her.

“Shultz…”her grin sent a chill down my spine. Have I mentioned this units gender ratio? Very rare in the Marines, and horrid for someone with Smith’s proclivities.

“I saw the way Gunny looked at you during the health and comfort.” The redness of her cheeks above her lopsided smile made it clear she had far more drinks than the two I saw here. A drunk Smith treats men as mere fodder for her fantasies, ones which place her in the role of spectator.

She pushed a volume she magic’ed out of nowhere into my hands, this one far more thin than the childish one given to Wood.

“Just a thought.” I took a quick peak at the front. A distinguished looking butler and a waifish young lord, shirts unbuttoned baring lightly muscled chests, could be seen embracing on the cover. The mustache was disconcertingly similar to that of our detachment’s SNCO, Gunnery Sergeant Hopkins, or Gunny as we call him usually. This was the third time so far she’s done this, and I would be more put off by it if I didn’t get some weird measure of amusement from Smith, acting all embarrassed, asking for her doujinshi back the following day.

There’s not much to do here besides work, browsing online, or other hobbies, so I can’t blame her for having fun shipping people in the privacy of her own imagination, but does she have to ship me with Gunny? At least ship me with someone younger. Wait, no, ship me with someone of the opposite Gender! Like Cavendish. Maybe I could even overlook that “incident” from my first week here if it was with her. It was an honest mistake, I’m told, so I can overlook it

I ‘ll take her word for it, but this drunkard in front of me really should stop pushing her tastes onto others. There’s no way in hell I could possibly imagine Wood acting all cutesy like a magical girl. Plus she’s a Marine, not a sailor scout. Though that doesn’t factor into it nearly as much as the incontrovertible fact that Wood is just not magical girl material. Magical? I can neither confirm nor deny that. Girl? At eighteen you’re really an adult. A guardian of love and justice? No...well, hmm. Technically a guardian of the Constitution, but she really is more of the kind of creature that haunts dark, overgrown woods, scaring or possibly eating innocent hikers and campers. Full Blair Witch vibes, which is rather impressive considering her territory consists solely of her barracks room.

“I need to head back to the duty hut.” Is all I manage to utter out. I put on my cover, or cap, and head back into an office on the first floor of the barracks. I pull out the green logbook, grab a pen, and write the following:

0000 ADNCO RETURNS. AN ISSUE WITH LOCAL WILDLIFE OCCURRED WHILE PATROLLING BARRACKS, BEHIND THE DUMPSTER. TWO (2) ROUNDS SPENT, EIGHT (8) REMAIN IN ADNCOS ISSUED MAG. THE APPARITION ON SECOND DECK CATWALK WAS OBSERVED AGAIN, BUT SHOOED AWAY WITH THE HELP OF LCPL CAVENDISH. NOTHING ELSE TO REPORT.

I sighed, leaning back in my chair. I booted up my computer and put on one of the shows I got off of Jones to kill the time until dawn. This was going to be a long night.