The Fort (Aric Davis)

whom. Not that it was impossible for some general to have given wrong coordinates to some gunner or pilot, but there was an insane amount of shit going off. Hooper just wanted to be away from the killing, away from this hell on earth.
    Somehow, in an instant that made zero sense, Hooper knew that a sniper was glassing him from behind, getting the reticules of his rifle lined up just right on Hooper’s back, adjusting for windage and elevation, and readying to pull the trigger. Hooper heard the crack of the rifle over all of the other noise. It didn’t make any sense, but above the screaming, AK fire, and explosions, the crack of the sniper’s rifle was the sound of an angry but faraway God. Pain erupted in his right calf, dropping him and tearing a scream from Hooper’s throat.
    When Hooper woke up, it was the middle of the night and he was covered in a slick sheen of sweat. He ignored the clock; time didn’t matter right now. His leg was killing him, and he wasn’t going to be able to sleep, possibly ever again, until he got the damn metal out of his leg.
    He’d been dreaming about Vietnam. It had been years since that had happened. Some guys let that fuck up their whole lives, but not Matt Hooper. His bad dreams had stopped when he’d started snatching and stabbing prostitutes, and they weren’t going to come back, not ever. He cursed under his breath, then stood and walked to the bathroom.
    He pissed, then opened the medicine cabinet, took out the aspirin, and ate six of them, washing the bitter powder down with water cupped in his hands from the sink. His leg had been feeling fine before he went to bed, but now it was more painful than ever. Calm down, Hoop. You knew as soon as that happened that that bullet had to come out of there. You’ve just been lying to yourself about it. Hooper tried grunting away the internal voice of reason, then accepted it. The bullet needed to come out, and there was only one person who could help him. Hooper left the bathroom, walked to the kitchen, then filled a pot with water and set it on the stove. He turned the burner all the way up and walked to the garage.
    His fishing and camping stuff was all in the rafters, lying on an old door. Hooper’s interest in the outdoors had faded years ago, so there was no need to make it more readily accessible. As he wrestled the folding ladder off of the wall, he regretted that decision more than almost any other that he’d ever made. When he finally had the ladder set up next to the Dodge, he rested and glared up at the rafters. There was going to be no way to do this without putting pressure on his injured leg. It was the only option. Hooper took a deep breath, released it, and began to climb.
    Hooper discovered after the very first rung that he’d grossly underestimated the pain that would be involved in this business. He accepted that and went on with it anyway, grunting and squealing as he made his agonizing way to the rafters to retrieve the tackle box. With every step, his leg felt as though it were being worked over with a knife. The worst part was knowing that as bad as this was, the extraction was likely going to be far, far worse.
    With his good leg on the fourth rung of the ladder, Hooper could just reach the bottom of the door. Sweat was pouring off of him in what felt like rivers, and his hands were slick with it. His whole body felt as though it had been dipped in oil. He struggled up two more steps, his body tense as a parachutist’s static line, all but ready to rip open and fly apart. Hooper placed his left hand on the door, and then the right, pulling on it to take some of the strain off of his hurt leg. He rummaged blindly atop the door until he located the ancient tackle box with the very tips of his roaming fingers. He strained and scratched at it until he finally found enough purchase to inch it closer and closer. At last he reached the handle and dragged it to the edge.
    Hooper set the box on top of the ladder and took a moment to rest and enjoy this minor triumph before setting to conquering the ladder in reverse. He managed to descend two rungs, but then his injured foot clipped a rung and he was airborne, the tackle box still firmly gripped in one hand, his other scrabbling futilely for a hold on the ladder. The moment didn’t last long. Hooper went from flying to landing with a teeth-rattling crash on the hood of the Dodge, the tackle box’s contents exploding across the garage.
    The world flashed