Sharpshooter by Chris Lynch Page B

Stay focused on that target. Do not make a sound. Do not twitch a fiber. Do not have so much as a detectable brain wave until I return to tell you otherwise. Is that perfectly clear?”
    I have my flaws, but I am certainly not untrainable. I learn.
    I do not respond in any way.
    â€œGood,” he says, and marches away again.
    Â 
    It seemed simple enough.
    Stand, aim, point the gun at the target. I can’t think of any more natural thing to do.
    But thirty minutes in, I feel it. The pain starts at the top of my right shoulder. Then it grows, travels, radiates down my arm and up into my neck. There is a nerve toward the back of my neck that feels like someone has gotten in there with a pair of needle-nose pliers, has pinched it off, and is twisting, twisting, twisting like the elastic in those old balsa-wood propeller planes I used to build all the time.
    My eye, the one I have on the target, has the sensation of a tiny hand scratching, the fingernails clawing lightly at the surface of the eye, then salty breath puffing lightly into it. I am sweating like I am personally the very source of the Mekong.
    And I regret that missed latrine break more than any decision I ever made.
    It has to be three hours before I hear footsteps coming my way. As they get closer it appears there are at least three, maybe four people coming. Relief, I am sensing relief, feeling relief, whether they are here to literally relieve me or not.
    â€œLook at this disciplined piece of Army machinery here,” Parrish says, walking around me like he’s checking out a new car. Please don’t kick my tires.
    â€œVery impressive,” Lightfoot says. “Do you suppose he’s trying out for the LRRPs?”
    The LRRPs are Long Range Reconnaissance Patrollers, and they are legendary as the most maniacal people in the entire show. They go out all painted up for night patrols as far out into the scarylands as they can get, remaining frozen for hours at a time to capture or terrorize individuals and bring back useful information or guns or enemy combatants as a kind of bonus.
    â€œNah,” Arguello says. “One of his eyes is closed. LRRPs never close their eyes.”
    I don’t care. Whatever they want to do to me now, I don’t care because I am right now doing the most important job in the Army, the war, the world. I can see the three of them, walking around me, trying to get me to move, react, exist in a physical way that I am just not going to do even if it kills me.
    Maybe I will lose my mind and wind up a LRRP at the end of it all.
    No, I won’t. Because I am not a LRRP. I am a marksman, and I am going to be a sniper.
    â€œWould you like a drink?” Parrish asks, taking a long and theatrically slurpy sip off of what I think is ginger ale.
    Moxie. All I can think of right now is Moxie. I miss Moxie. I want Moxie. When I get through this, I am going to make it my mission to secure a supply of Moxie. Moxie is my secret, my strength, my source. Moxie is my essence, and with it I cannot fail.
    Lightfoot actually comes up close and blows on the side of my face softly. I have no idea what kind of torture this is intended to be, but it feels like heaven.
    Arguello comes around the front of me and starts making sniffing noises.
    â€œI don’t remember this guy smelling like that when he got here,” he says. “Smells like he’s rotting. Do you think he is rotting since he got here?”
    â€œYeah, now that you mention it,” Parrish says, “there is a little something foul going on there.”
    â€œIs it coming from here?” Arguello says, crouching down right in front of me.
    My arms are screaming with the pain now. My neck is going to snap. I can’t feel my hands.
    After examining the area for several seconds, Arguello pulls a rolled-up magazine out of his back pocket. He begins to fan my already damp crotch area.
    Oh, no. Oh, please, no.
    I can feel the breeze coming through