The Howling Valley

Here’s my entry for the Literotica Halloween 2020 Story Contest. Hope it makes sleep just a little more difficult for you.

*****

I’ve been fascinated by the legacy of the Vietnam War for a long time, and while you’d think that the documented horrors of that particular conflict would be more than enough for a story like this, I wanted to throw something even more malevolent than napalm, booby traps, or Richard Nixon into that mix (if that’s even possible), so here we are.

A quick note: this story will feature many references to locations, people, events, and equipment/weapons that were prevalent during the Vietnam War, some of which may be more obscure than others. To avoid any confusion, I’d suggest keeping Google open and ready in another tab, seeing as I can’t exactly add footnotes.

Now it’s time to plunge into the deep, dark jungles of Vietnam, where Charlie and his AK aren’t even close to being the most dangerous threat lurking in the treeline...

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“It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.” - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899)

*****

October, 1968 - Quang Duc Province, South Vietnam

Should’ve made for fucking Nova Scotia, that’s what I should have done. Soon as I’d gotten my draft notice, I should have booked it for the border and never looked back. Fucking Dad and his shit-talking; all his blustering about ‘being a man’ and how ‘he served, and so should I’, when that motherfucker hadn’t gone anywhere near the fucking Krauts or the Japs. Can’t believe I let him bully me into going to fucking boot camp, can’t believe I’m hucking through this fucking shitty jungle, can’t believe I’m risking my fucking life in this backwater hellhole for nothing...

These were only a smattering of the thoughts that swirled through Scott ‘Scotty’ McKinley’s head like a cyclone as he trudged along some unnamed trail that snaked through the western limits of Quang Duc, trying to keep his footing on the uneven and muddy terrain.

The conditions were miserable enough on their own, but to pile disillusionment on top of heat, humidity, dangerous wildlife and hostile locals? Misery, that was what it all equated to. Nothing less than abject motherfucking misery in the midst of a green inferno, wherein almost every living thing wanted his blood. But he was here now, and going AWOL wouldn’t solve anything (he couldn’t exactly catch a cab home), and hell, he wasn’t bad with a weapon. He figured that if he had been able to survive the Tet Offensive, he’d make it through the rest of his tour (mostly) intact.

But then again, this was probably wishful thinking, and on some level he knew that he was just as likely to take a round to the neck now as he had been for the duration of Tet. And, as he and his platoon pushed further into the depths of the jungle, he felt as he always did during patrols: exposed. They may have been armed to the teeth, but Charlie always knew the lay of the land by heart; an ambush was never, ever out of the question unless the area had just been bombed, burned or poisoned-and this area hadn’t seen any of that in recent memory. As a result, Scotty was on edge; he constantly felt as if he were being watched, and he was certain that the rest of the guys shared that sentiment. In fact, he had discovered that one was far less likely to survive without that constant underlying paranoia. He trusted that feeling as much as he trusted his buddies.

His platoon, comprised of twenty men in total, had been part of a company that had been pulled from its’ normal pacification duties in the Mekong Delta in order to reinforce the Marines already present in the region. Intel gleaned over the past few weeks suggested that the Viet Cong were moving-or about to move-some heavy firepower across the Cambodian border into this region, and the brass wanted some more boys in the area in order to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. They’d arrived in Quang Duc four days earlier, and so far nothing out of the ordinary had surfaced. For the time being, it was just schlepping up and down the trails for Scotty and the rest of them until Charlie poked his head out.

“What you think about this bush, Scotty? Man we definitely ain’t in the villages no more,” O’Hara quipped, handing Scotty his canteen as they stopped for a break, “you from Florida, right? This shit badder than the Everglades?” He chuckled as Scotty took a draw from the container.

“This is some shit, no joke,” Scotty replied, totally deadpan, “but there ain’t nothin’ badder than Mama O’Hara’s big ol’ bush, no sir.”

This drew a cackle out of O’Hara, as well as solid laughs from Walters, Okumura and Kanafka, all of whom were sitting on the roots of the same large tree that Scotty and O’Hara had settled onto. The five men had developed a particularly close bond during their tenure in Vietnam; eight months straight of having to fend off Charlie, civilians with grenades, wild animals, insects, malaria, and trench foot had brought them together and cemented their resolve to gut, shoot, or detonate anything that wasn’t wearing U.S. or ARVN colors. Folks back home didn’t really understand, after all, that it wasn’t just Charlie that they were fighting: it was the whole damned place, right down to the land itself. O’Hara’s remark had been more firmly rooted in truth than an outsider might have expected: the jungle, the mud, and even the moisture hindered them at every turn. These lesser-known enemies dulled their machetes, rusted their weapons, and rotted their boots. Nothing was sacred, nothing and no one was spared from their uncaring, indiscriminate wrath.

Duane O’Hara himself was a strong, stocky man of twenty-three who’d been born to an Irish father and a black mother; he’d spent much of his youth wandering his home turf of Queens, New York, working odd jobs to help support his family and getting high or liquored up when he hadn’t been busting his ass-that was, up until he had been drafted. He’d even admitted once that the promised insurance payout his family would receive, should he be killed in action, was a primary factor in why he hadn’t bolted to Canada after getting his notice. He claimed to have inherited his father’s coarse sense of humor and love of bourbon, while taking nothing but his looks from his mother.

“Man, you talkin’ all that shit,” O’Hara said, still smiling as he lit a Marlboro Red, “but you be glad my mama ain’t here, she’d beat your white boy head right in.”

“I’d pay to see that,” Okumura chimed in, accepting a Red of his own as O’Hara handed him the pack, “shit, O’Hara, way you always talk about your mom? Sounds like she ought to be handlin’ shit down in Saigon, instead of fuckin’ Thieu. Bet she’d have those commie motherfuckers up in Hanoi whipped into shape in no time.” Still grinning, he pulled out his own lighter, opening it with a metallic ‘clink’ and igniting it. He lit the smoke, took a drag, then held it away from his mouth between his thumb and forefinger while saying, “And ain’t you half a white boy anyway, O’Hara?”

“Still a brotha, Okie, don’t you get me started on this shit!”

Gene ‘Okie’ Okumura loosed a deep, gravelly chuckle as he took another drag on his Marlboro. A short, wiry Japanese-American who hailed from Oahu, he was a man of generally few words who nonetheless possessed two spectacular talents: warfare and shit-talking. His razor-sharp tongue, combined with his penchant for machine gun work, made him an invaluable combat asset; he may have looked bizarre carrying an M-60 that was almost two-thirds his size, but his performance with the weapon would quickly allay any fears or doubts as to his abilities.

As he smoked his cigarette, he put his other hand back onto the handguard of his light machine gun, never wanting to be unable to deploy it at a moment’s notice. “Yeah, and I’m actually a fuckin’ Okie, O’Hara,” he sneered, taking another long drag.

O’Hara flipped Okie the bird and a fist simultaneously, getting chuckles out of the rest of them. Walters, smiling, pulled a smoke from his own pack and lit up. “Don’t you pay Okie no mind, brother. He just got a short man complex, that’s all.”

“Around you, everyone fuckin’ does, Walters. You’re bigger than God Himself, ya big ol’ fuck.” Okie shot back.

Okie had a point. Tyrone Walters, a soft-spoken and kind-hearted Milwaukee native, was six-foot-eight and built from what looked like solid muscle. Being a black man in a predominately white military didn’t seem to bother Walters much (in part because his sheer size and muscle mass made many of his more narrow-minded colleagues think twice about harassing him), but Scotty knew better. He’d once heard a drunken GI throw some choice racial epithets Walters’ way in a Saigon dive bar-to which Walters had, without speaking a word, stood from his stool, walked over to the GI, and slammed his head into the bar, holding it there firmly. “That was uncalled for, my man,” Walters had said calmly as the rest of the patrons looked on in awe, “your mama never taught you manners, seems to me.” As the GI blubbered and thrashed, Walters had refused to let go until the man whimpered out an apology, after which Walters had pitched him off his stool to the bar’s dingy, filthy floor. He’d scrambled to the door and left, whereupon Walters had calmly returned to his seat and ordered a whiskey double.

While Walters may have been known as a great listener who would always be willing to offer sound advice and much-needed criticism, but he was also a vicious fighter and a model soldier. Scotty knew that anyone who ended up on the wrong end of his M79 (upon the barrel of which he’d carefully marked the phrase ‘FRONT TOWARD ENEMY’) wouldn’t be around to stare in awe at his massive form for very long. “Give no insult, but take no shit,” as he’d been known to say from time to time.

“Hey Kanafka, how you holdin’ up over there, man?” Walters asked in his deep, resonant baritone. “You ain’t said much today, talk to me.”

Troy Kanafka looked Walters in the eye. “Sorry, brother,” he said, “didn’t mean to make you worry. Just that we’re in new jungle and I’m waitin’ for Charlie to pop out, y’know?”

“Jumpy ain’t all bad,” Scotty said, taking another swig from O’Hara’s canteen, “just don’t take it too far, I don’t want you to shoot me when I pipe up to tell you your shoe’s untied, you know?”

Kanafka smiled. “Yeah. Sorry man.”

“No need to say sorry,” O’Hara cut in, “we just checkin’ on you.”

Kanafka smiled again, but his eyes betrayed his true feelings. He’d been quieter than usual since their redeployment to Quang Duc; he didn’t take to change, it seemed, and Scotty couldn’t blame him. They were hunting the enemy now, deliberately seeking engagement with him, and that was a dangerous proposition indeed. Some believed that change was inherently good-those fuckers had never been on patrol in the shit, Scotty thought.

Kanafka was the guy who played things close to the vest in their group. He’d talk and bullshit all day long, but had been reticent when it came to discussing his past. Scotty knew that he was from Eugene, Oregon, and that his father had died when Kanafka had been only three. Of his mother, Kanafka had only ever said “she’s a mean old bitch and I’m glad to be rid of her.” When asked if anyone was waiting for him, he’d simply say “nope.” When asked about his career, he’d said “mechanic. Good money in it.” Even Walters had had trouble cracking the shell that Kanafka had encased himself within, and the man didn’t seem too keen on coming out of it.

As the five Marines laughed and joked for a time, surrounded by the almost suffocating branches and tendrils of the Southeast Asian jungle, things almost seemed normal. They all felt like they were back home in a bar, sitting in a cushioned booth after a long day’s work, blowing off steam and talking shit like regular men do. It was one of those rare moment of respite that they had all grown to cherish, which made the jolt back to reality all the more unpleasant and jarring when Sergeant Ambrose walked up to their group and ordered them to gather their gear.

“Up and at ‘em, we got miles to cover. Come on, boys.”

There was a chorus of “yes, sir’s” as the five men stood and gathered their smokes, lighters, canteens, and weapons. Scotty picked up his rifle, an M-16A1 with several strips of dark green grip tape wrapped around the handguards and pistol grip, and clutched it tightly in his hands as he trudged back onto the small trail just behind Walters. As they cut the chatter, Scotty leaned forward so that he could see the right side of his rifle and opened the bolt just a little, whereupon he was reassured by the glint of brass. He was ready to rock Charlie’s fuckin’ world. Adjusting his helmet just a little, he marched onwards into the seemingly endless green oblivion that was the Vietnamese jungle.

*****

The only sounds now were those of the insects and the various birds hiding among the treetops. Even the footsteps and movements of the platoon were quieter than any onlooker might have expected; they were clearly trained to move as one unit, each of them following in the footsteps of the other, eyes veering in all directions, scanning for anything that didn’t belong. Behind Scotty, Okie and another Marine named Trager, who carried the extra ammo for the M-60, stuck particularly close to one another. Scotty was silently grateful that he was so close to them-if they were attacked, he wanted to be as close to the support as possible.

The trail was more solid now than it had been, the mud seemingly behind them for the time being. It now began to veer westward, taking them closer to the mountain range that had been off to their left throughout the duration of the patrol. As far as Scotty knew, this was the range that Charlie would have to move their supposed heavy materiel through...but where? How? He figured that there had to be some sort of pass thay they would use, but where it was was anybody’s guess. He hoped that the other squads were having more luck than they were, because-

The line stopped as Morgan, the point man, halted and raised a fist. The rest of the platoon immediately stopped behind him, weapons at the ready, not making a sound. Morgan motioned to Ambrose, who quietly approached. Scotty could just barely hear them as they spoke.

“Tracks, maybe a day old, headed west into the jungle, Sarge. They’re not U.S. or ARVN issue boots; probably VC.”

Ambrose nodded and shouldered his carbine, approaching the spot where the faint tracks, which had come from the opposite direction, went off-road. He took a few tentative steps into the plants and looked closer for a moment, observing the ground and vegetation before he whispered back to the men.

“We got a trail-it’s faint, but it’s there. I’ll take five men with me and check it out.”

He turned back to the platoon. “Morgan, O’Hara, Tomberlin, McKinley, De Lena, you’re on me. The rest of you, stay put and watch the road; be ready to call it in and come in guns blazing,” he whispered hoarsely.

Scotty and O’Hara broke from the formation and joined the other four on the side of the trail. They formed a single-file line behind Ambrose, who, with his carbine shouldered, led them into the brush. It was slow going, and Scotty thought that every single twig snapping was as loud as a gunshot. Fuck, he thought, this is it, isn’t it? I lived through fucking Tet just to get jumped and bayoneted by some crazed Charlie motherfucker in the middle of nowhere, I know it, that’s what’s about to happen-

Ambrose halted and motioned to get down. The five men behind him immediately ducked, weapons at the ready. Scotty ran his thumb over the safety on his M-16, ensuring that it was set to maximum rock-and-roll. Ambrose nodded to the area directly in front of him, which was when Scotty saw it: partially hiddenin the plants was a slit in an earthen wall that had been shored up with bamboo rods and dark brown sandbags. It was a gunner’s nest.

Scotty’s blood ran cold, and he now had a death grip on his rifle. He took deep, quiet breaths as Ambrose motioned for the men to stay where they were, the fear and adrenaline coursing through him in concurrence with one another. His sweat trickled down his brow and into his eyes as Ambrose crept up to the gap, weapon pointed directly at it. It felt like hours before he made it to the wall next to the opening. He leaned down and peered inside...

Nothing happened. Ambrose turned and motioned at Tomberlin, who crept up to Sergeant. “T, go back and tell Watterson to call this in. We’re clearing this place out.”

“Yessir, right away.”

“Make it fast, T.”

Tomberlin vanished back down the crude path toward the main trail. Ambrose motioned for Scotty and the others to follow him as he moved in front of the opening to the nest.

“We don’t know what the motherfuckers might’ve left behind; keep your shit wired tight and watch for traps,” he whispered. With that, the Sergeant slipped into the opening feet-first, and landed upright. He peered around in the gloom, making sure nothing was amiss, and then poked his head back out through the opening.

“Come on, stay sharp.”

The men slipped through the opening one at a time behind the Sergeant, Scotty second among them. He came down on his feet and went over to Ambrose, who nodded at him. “You good, McKinley?” He whispered. Scotty nodded quickly, helmet bobbing lightly. Ambrose gave him a quick grin, and checked to make sure that everyone was present. De Lena was landing on his feet as he did, bringing up the rear, and as he stood upright and readied his M-16, Ambrose faced the left wall of the small room. There was a crude door carved into the wall, which lead into a dark hallway of uncertain length. Tightly gripping his own rifle, he watched as Ambrose slipped into the dark slot, Scotty almost certain that this was when Charlie would strike. But there were no yells, no gunshots...again, nothing happened as Scotty’s squadmates filed through behind Ambrose. De Lena again brought up the rear, Scotty just ahead of him, as they began their search of the crude, makeshift bunker.

It turned out to be a small job, only four rooms in total: the gunner’s post, a storage room with a few cans of ammo, some bags of rice and basic medical supplies, and two small living spaces. The place had been in use recently, at least within the last day or so, as it showed signs of having been occupied recently. A few pieces of clothing, some simple cookware, and even a faded photograph of a young woman alongside a pair of small children-likely the young family of a homesick soldier from some obscure village in the North-were among the objects left behind by the occupants.

Scotty himself had been the one to find the photograph, kneeling down to discover it half-concealed underneath a worn and dirty short-sleeved black shirt. As he’d taken a brief moment to soak in what he was seeing, he found himself thinking about the people in the image: were they alive? Was the owner of the picture, likely the husband and father of the occupants, still upright? Had he-or the trio-been struck down by a bombing raid or a napalm strike, or even poisoned through Agent Orange exposure? Who knew anymore? There were so many civvies getting caught in the hellfire of all the various strikes that he’d certainly never find out.

But, as he was staring at the black and white image, getting strangely lost in every detail contained within it, a hand rested on his right shoulder. Scotty whipped around, nearly hitting its’ owner in the face with the muzzle of his weapon. The culprit jumped back in surprise, hands out in front of her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I-I didn’t mean-“

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Scotty said, his heart rate slowing and the small adrenaline surge abating. “You should know that doin’ shit like that’s a good way to end up gettin’ shot, though. Didn’t Ambrose tell you that?”