^(Trigger warning for dehumanization, gaslighting, violence, war crimes.)
The cold stings my face like a thousand little prickles all over. It’s late February and the snow has all but melted. The sky’s tinted blood red by the retreating sun, already halfway below the hills. The village is completely empty of even the smallest semblance of life, all that is left are the bodies. Half of the houses barely fit the definition of one, most of them are piles of brick and rubble. Others are a deep black of charred wood and ash. The ground is littered with a combination of busted drones and spent shells.
I cradle my submachine gun in a tight embrace, like I would my own newborn. Approaching the village is no easy task in itself. Every snap of each twig and branch under our boots puts me in a short burst of paranoid defenciveness. I treat every noise like a potential threat that has just revealed itself, only to settle down into a calm once I realize it is merely our own steps. That’s the state we’re in our whole trek to the heart of the village. They never should’ve given me this gun.
A worn blue sign punctured by the odd bullet hole every once in a while reads the former name of what was once Hurbišovo, name crossed out with black paint. Or, Paradicsom, though that sign is torn down and discarded on the ground.
I wasn’t sent here by my lonesome. The other guy, squeezing his own submachine gun, is Balvan. We’re both wearing a green-brown get-up, though I still wish we got real camo. Realistically, I wouldn’t feel any safer even then.
The odd thing is that I’ve never learned what his real name is. Codenames were a necessity way back and they’ve stuck since. In any case, what matters more than the name of a man are always his qualities. Balvan’s hard-nosed and down to earth. He’s the kind of guy you’d want to have your back, but personality traits are irrelevant to Lady Luck. The only difference his attitude makes is whether we die today or tomorrow. In the grand scheme, that’s not much of a difference.
“Let’s check that building out.” Balvan points to a small house just a few meters away, probably one of the only two that are largely intact.
The air inside is stale and musty, and the only light in the otherwise dark room comes in through the windows. Bullet holes and splatters of red adorn the interior walls of what might’ve once been a homey kitchen. On the floor lay what I assume are the former inhabitants of the household, the very same depicted in a shattered picture that escaped its frame on the hardwood planks.
“Was this us, or them?” I break the heavy silence, barely able to choke the words out.
“I don’t know.”
There is no smell assaulting my nostrils, meaning the bodies must be quite fresh. I don’t wanna be here for when they start to stink and flies come buzzing about, so it might be best to drag them out before we hunker down.
“Shame. Dying when the war’s almost over. It could happen to just about anyone.” Balvan feigns some sympathy.
“Yeah.”
“I mean anyone. Anyone.”
“No, I get the implication.”
“Good. Let’s drag these cats out before nightfall comes. Or else we might have to join ‘em.”
There’s three bodies, which seems to match the dropped photo. Well, almost. One family member is absent from the crimson-soaked floor. An infant.
“Wait, Balvan.”
“Yeah?”
“We could still have somebody else in the house. Wouldn’t want any surprises.”
I point at the photo with the barrel of my weapon. Balvan slowly turns his gaze to the photo and then jerks his head to face me.
“Are you serious? It’s just some baby.”
“The photo could be old. Maybe it’s a grown man now.”
“Doubt it. Even if: you’ve got a loaded magazine and your finger’s hugging that trigger like Jody’s spooning your girlfriend. What do you have to be scared of?”
“… Nothing.”
“That’s what I thought. Make sure to bend your knees when you’re lifting. And let go of that damn trigger. Don’t tell me they didn’t teach you any trigger discipline.”
“They didn’t.”
Tuck my gun in my pouch. I squat and grab a male corpse by the pits. I almost lose my balance because I overestimated how heavy it’d be. I mean, it makes sense. I doubt they’ve been getting much food in the middle of a warzone. All the food has gotta go to the soldiers.
I drag the thin man out and set him on the porch. Balvan’s not too far behind, carrying on his shoulders a former man and woman. He drops them when he’s at the door and looks at me in disbelief.
“Really? The porch? Do you want us to draw attention to ourselves that bad?”
“Sorry.”
“We should place them on the lawn at least. Or, even better, in a different house. Smell and attention both pointing in a completely different direction.”
“Yeah, fine.”
It’s as we’re dragging the bodies to the other house that a loud whooshing zooms through the air. Closer and closer until… A flash of light followed by a sound so intense it sends me flying through the air. I lose consciousness.
A low hum permeates the atmosphere. Moonlight illuminates the compact kitchen. Itself now clear of bodies, though the bullet holes and blood stayed behind. Stiffness numbs my body, splayed out on the uncomfortable floor. It takes me a few moments to recall exactly what happened and get my bearings. I lift myself off the floor only for my strength to flee from me. I crumple down.
A “Hush!” follows the mild thud of my body crashing to the floor. I snap my gaze over to a figure shrouded in the shadows, the moon’s glow reflected in the eyes of the silhouette. I’m quick to reach for my submachine gun in the empty pouch. The realization strips me of any resolve I might’ve still retained. I fruitlessly grip the air inside, praying the metal weapon will magically materialize in my hands.
“Christ! Vrabec, calm the fuck down!” Balvan spits at me through a tense whisper-shout. It’s just him. I’m yet to fully calm down, even though his presence is good news.
“Sorry. Where are we?” I whisper back.
“Did the airstrike lobotomize you? Hurbišovo. The kitchen of the house. Hello?”
“Yeah. Okay. I know.”
“Then why’d you ask me?”
“Sorry. I’m sorry. What happened?”
“Airstrike. Are you even listening? Who am I repeating this for?” he hisses at me like some snake.
I’m waiting for all my thoughts to return. Clearing the fog I remember my submachine gun.
“Where’s my gun?”
“Must be outside. I pulled you in pretty quick.”
“Do you still have yours?”
“Of course. I’m not some fuck-up.”
“What’s that hum? The one in the background.”
“Hum? You alright?”
“Yes.” Better not be a concussion.
“Good. Sit where you are. Better for us to wait til morning.” Balvan opens a small pouch on his pants and takes out a small bit of paper.
“Wait? For what?”
“You were there when they smoked us. Better if we wait for back-up. No more surprises tonight. Our guys will make the rounds in the morning. We’ll just have to wait this out.” Then he picks a pipe off the floor which was shrouded in darkness prior. Covered in blood. Or maybe not. I can’t really tell, it’s so dark. It probably belonged to the family.
“You’re not thinking about lighting that up, are you?”
“What? No, of course not. That thing’s got the dead guy’s saliva all over. Putting that thing in my mouth is like exchanging a kiss. And I’m not about to kiss a Magyar.” I can’t tell whether that last part was a joke to lighten the mood or his actual reasoning.
Balvan begins to pour the tobacco into the small paper he pulled out earlier. His hands are shaking. Bet half of it ended up on the ground, but I can’t see. By the end he’s stuffing his fingers in the pipe and digging out the remaining tobacco.
“Listen, I really don’t think you should be lighting one up.”
“Jesus! Why don’t you let me worry about that? I haven’t had a smoke in days, so just fuck off and keep it to yourself.” There’s that whisper-shout again.
He licks the paper and rolls the cig into a cylinder.
“You should at least hide off in some corner. What if they see the flame through the window?”
“Shut the fuck up, Vrabec. I know you’re a dimwit, but you try. Which is why I’m not hard on you. But now you’re really making me regret it. Just let me have one smoke.”
Balvan leans over to a spot that’s outside of the window’s field of view. A lighter I didn’t see him take out before illuminates his face in bright orange. Hand holding it glides over to the cigarette sticking out of his mouth.
The flame vanishes when Balvan leans back and takes the cig out after a long pull. Smoke vents out into the air and stinks it up. His silhouette deflates almost instantly. A slow blink hides the glimmer in the eyes, the one visible moments prior. Then they open back up. The cigarette’s glow dies down.
We bask in the night’s hum for what feels like quite some time. Judging by his earlier confusion, I can't be sure whether he also hears the hum or not. I'd ask, but I don't want another scolding.
“None of this would’ve happened if we’d just expelled them all with the Decrees the first time. We wasted our shot, and now we’re paying the price.” Balvan is the first to break the silence. A low flame tracking his cigarette travels to the area below his eyes. I assume he’s sticking it in his mouth, but I really can’t tell. Too dark. He takes another drag and the end of the cig flames up again, casting some light upon his face, though not as much as the lighter before. His eyes are lit with yellow, reflecting the tiny blaze.
“Yeah. Maybe. I wonder what we’ll do to them once the war’s over.”
“The war will never be over as long as they stay here. Thank God for Rybár, honestly. You can be damn sure the Decrees’ll look like baby shit compared to whatever he’s cooking up.” Balvan takes another drag from the cigarette. Orange rushes to fill the ridges at the end.
“Y’know what I heard about Rybár?”
“What?”
“I heard Rybár’s Riders are gunning for Budapest.”
“Hah. Right.” I squirm at how loud his cackle is. Like a gunshot cutting through the air. Were we anywhere else, it probably wouldn’t even seem that loud. “Been watching Hungarian news? Everybody’s always fishing for dirt on Rybár. Sounds like the exact kind of fear-mongering a propaganda department comes up with. When they’re not dehumanizing us, they’re smearing our leaders. That’s the thing about Magyars: lying is all they know.”
“Whatever you say. But I did hear it. Once the country’s liberated, every square centimeter, they’re not gonna stop. They’ll roll into Budapest with tanks. And they’ll flatten it to the ground. They’ll kill them for what they did to us.”
“Sounds like a solid plan. If he wants us to lose all our backers.”
“Rybár’s a madman.”
“Oh, no doubt. Even before the war. However, he’s not stupid. He’s not gonna throw away international support just like that.”
It’s at this point that I stop responding. It feels like we’re getting way too loud. Balvan’s still sucking the life out of that shrinking cig. Getting shorter with each pull. Little orange light. He proceeds to drop the thing on the ground before putting it out.
We sit for a bit longer before…
Cough! Cough-Cough!
Balvan is overtaken by a fit. Louder than the entire conversation prior. Wheezing and spluttering.
“Dude, shut the fuck up!”
“Give me…” Cough, “a minute…” Cough.
He collapses himself to the floor and covers his mouth. I don’t see him doing that, but I can hear it. The coughing gets only slightly quieter. He finally forces himself to stop once another sound pierces the night’s low hum.
Loud wailing, like from a small infant, reverberates from the outside and into our shelter.
Balvan’s no longer coughing.
Shit.
“Will that baby just shut up?” I sigh. We’ve both been keeping quiet for the past few minutes. It’s now I decide that the loud bawling outside has gotten way too bothersome for me. Something about babies crying makes me really uncomfortable.
“Baby? What baby?” Balvan asks me in a kind of infantile tone.
“Have you lost it? Don’t you hear all that crying?”
“Oh, the crying. I do.”
“Well? We gotta go get it.”
“Go and get what, exactly?” Though I can’t see it, I’m pretty sure he’s smiling. You can always tell by the way a person’s inflection changes.
“The baby. We have to bring it inside.”
“Why?” His questions feel less like genuine confusion and more like he’s toying with me.
“Because it’s cold out. The baby might die.”
I begin to pick myself up off the ground. I’m halfway up before Balvan leaps up at me and knocks me to the floor.
“Stop! Stop, right now!” he whispers in my ear while holding me down.
“Get off me! What are you doing!?” I try to wiggle him off, simultaneously careful so as I’m not louder than the wails.
“That’s not a baby.” he says through the sharp screams outside.
Balvan lets go and I slither to a corner opposite him.
“What else is it then? An old lady? Never heard a baby crying before?”
“Vrabec, I’m telling you right now, that’s not a baby.”
“Then what is it?”
He looks out of the window for a long while and then back at me.
“It’s a drone.”
“What? What are you on about?”
“It’s a drone. Think about the airstrike. They saw us here.”
“What of it?”
“God, how did you ever make it past tactical training?”
“I didn’t.”
“They know we were here. They’re just checking if we made it out alive. That sound is coming from a drone. They want us to go after the noise and put ourselves in the open. Then, they send a second airstrike. To finish the job.” he says with such confidence I no longer have any idea whether to believe him or not. I mean, he wouldn’t sound that confident if he wasn’t sure, would he? Then again, the sobs outside tell a different story.
“Why not tell me from the start?”
“I didn’t think you’d try and go out there.”
“… I still think we should look.”
“Are you mental? Are you out of your fucking mind? That’s not a baby crying out there. It’s a trap.”
“And what if it’s not? What if it’s a real baby? We have to hide it, at least. Think about the cold. The night.”
“Who cares? Why do you care? Why is this the hill you wanna die on?”
“It’s just a baby.”
“I’m telling you, that’s not a baby. It’s the sound coming off a drone.” I notice that he hasn’t blinked for a while. His gaze is glued to me.
“How can you be sure? How do you know?”
“The hum you heard, remember? Drones all have a hum.” That very hum is indeed still here.
“… What if it’s something else?”
“Oh, right. I guess it’s the washing machine in the basement. C’mon, Vrabec. Use your one brain cell to consider this for even a second. That’s how they get idiot saps like you to die out there. It’s a cruel and effective tactic.”
“Alright, let’s say there’s a drone. What if the baby’s out there at the same time?”
“Then there’s still a drone on our hands and we die anyway.” He blinks for the first time. The baby’s still wailing out there.
“I’m gonna go out.”
“Vrabec, if you step outside, I am going to shoot you. Right here.” Balvan stiffens up, clearly on-edge.
“Why?”
“You’d be killing both of us.” I spot his hand inching closer to his holster. Not there yet, but getting close.
“Okay. I won’t go outside.”
“Good. I knew you weren’t a total moron.” His hand relaxes but his posture is still tense.
There is a significant and heavy period where we don’t say anything. All that keeps us company are the shrieks outside of the distressed baby and complementary humming. The night is far from quiet.
“It makes me wonder.” I ask to keep our minds off it.
“What?”
“Do you miss home?”
“We won’t have a home if we don’t finish the job, Vrabec. You have to be strong. Not just for you or me, but for every Slovak out there.” I wish I could focus on the words he’s saying. My mind keeps coming back to the obvious. “A man’s country is all he has, and there is nothing more honourable than fighting to defend it. Slovakia is what our forefathers fought for. Don’t disrespect them.” I hear the words but I’m having trouble processing them.
“Sorry, the baby’s kind of making it-”
“Just forget the baby. It’s not even real. It’s psychological warfare and you’re putty in their hands. They got you right where they want. If guys like you called the shots, we’d all be speaking Hungarian right now.”
“We have a moral obligation to at least take a look.”
“Moral obligation? Excuse me? Fucking Christ, do you really have a death wish that strong? Where was this conscience when we were moving those bodies?”
“This is different. You know that.”
“Different? Different how? You’re just making shit up as you go along. If you’re not even consistent, why bother? If you want to kill yourself then let’s wait til backup arrives and I can get you in front a firing squad.” It’s here that I notice how loud we’ve gotten. Like the cries of the baby and our argument are in a tight competition to see who outscreams who. I don’t even care about the noise anymore. I’m not backing down.
“You’re going to kill me? You’re a psychopathic asshole. That could be an infant out there. How do you plan to live with yourself, knowing you didn’t do anything?”
“At least I’ll be alive to figure that out. Trust me, tomorrow morning our guys are gonna find a drone and you’ll look like the idiot everybody already knows you are.”
“This should concern you, too. If it’s really a baby, it's crying’s going to attract unwanted attention. If they’re not watching us already, they’ll surely hear us and come by because of the noise. You’re the idiot if you haven’t realized that!”
Balvan sits, unmoving. Processing the dilemma on his own. Every second or so he looks outside the window and back at me. I wonder if the crying slices through his thoughts as well.
“Listen to how loud we’ve been the past few minutes. If they were listening, they would’ve struck us down by now. It can’t be a drone.” I don’t know if I even believe my own words at this point. I have to sound like I do, at least.
“Just because they haven’t struck us yet doesn’t mean they won’t once we go outside. They could be waiting for a better shot.”
“If you’re wrong, that baby’s blood is on your hands. And we stood by for no reason.”
“If you’re wrong, we’re both dead for no reason.” Balvan spits out at me.
“I don’t care. I’m going outside. And I’m the one doing the pragmatic thing here. Those shrieks are gonna have the whole Hungarian Army here by now if we don’t step in.”
“No.” He stands up and unsheaths his gun. “You’re right. I’ll go outside and have a look. You stay back. If I die out there, I’m coming back to haunt you until the day you die.” The sudden change of heart takes me aback.
“Wait, why are you going outside?”
“Isn’t this what you wanted? And you’re right about the attention all that crying could draw to us. Better nip this in the bud.”
Balvan retreats into the shadows, gun drawn. Despite the heavy boots, his footsteps are soft. I can barely register them over the screams coming from outside the house.
I can hear the front door creaking from here. Now it’s just me and the darkness. Neither the cries nor the hum retreat. Balvan is somewhere in-between the two.
An eternity passes, and then an eternity more. Still, the crying continues. The hum persists. Any second now I expect to hear that whoosh again. Another explosion. This time I’ll be the one rescuing Balvan. If there’s anything left of him.
This was a stupid idea. Maybe I was wrong to send him out. This could very well kill him. What’s the likelihood of a baby surviving that long by itself out there anyway?
A single shot stops me in the middle of my doubt. A decisive shot. Louder than any I’ve ever heard before slices through the air.
The crying’s stopped.
The door creaks once more. Heavy steps make contact with the floor completely carelessly. I scramble to hide under the table. Just in case.
Balvan steps out the shadows, weapon already pouched. He sits back down where he was back when I first woke up. He picks up the pipe off the floor again and begins scraping for more tobacco.
“… Balvan?”
“I’m gonna light myself a smoke.”
“What happened?”
He takes his time rolling another cigarette. Hands steady. He lights it in his mouth, orange once again illuminates his features. Deep shadows expose the wrinkles in his worn face. Eyes yellow.
“Hungarian drone.” he says through the cigarette. Smoke puffs out of his mouth.
I swear I can make out the faintest hint of blood smearing his person. Then, I look once more. It’s gone. Then there it is again. It’s too dark for me to be sure. I might just be imagining it.
That’s not what worries me the most, though. I can’t help but notice that a faint hum still continues in my ears.