Chapter 13
Frank was in his early sixties. A frail man who rarely spoke to anyone, he lived within a mile of the cemetery. He had been drafted into the Marine Corp to fight in Vietnam and from that day forward, his life would be unchangeably altered. After basic training, he was shipped off with his unit to the jungles near the border dividing north from south. His platoon spent many weeks walking through the humid undergrowth, usually seeing nothing. But the quiet snap of a twig, or the waving of a single leaf would often ring the bells of alarm as the senses of every man peaked. The enemy proved to be far more cunning than anyone had expected and deep in the jungle, they used a method of warfare that effectively rendered U.S. guerrilla tactics useless. On one occasion, Frank's platoon encountered a white sheet hanging from a tree some twenty feet off the ground. It had been put there as a distraction from a length of fishing line that lay taut across the trail, with one end tied to a tree while the other fixed to the pin of a shrapnel bomb. Tripping the wire would have cost, at least, five men their lives. On one particular day, Frank was their point man and had the reputation of being able to see the slightest detail against the sea of the jungle's heavy vegetation. But something about him was different that day. Walking into an unfamiliar country and an active war zone can take one's mind to many places, and none of them good. Perhaps, Frank had been distracted by his own paranoia, not of being killed but by the stress of anticipated horror and suffering at the hands of a skilled enemy. Regardless of how it happened, Frank stepped over a thin line that lay over the trail, the bottom of his heel barely touching it. In the silence of the jungle, the metallic ping of the pin being pulled from the explosive was almost deafening. While Frank was somehow left with minimal injuries, it was the rest of the squad that paid the price for his lapse of judgement, as the foot of the man behind him found the fishing line. A fraction of a heartbeat later brought a hailstorm of nails and pellets against the men. There was no time to panic, no time to run. The shock wave of the explosion was far more damaging than the shrapnel. At such a close distance, the intensity of the blast burst eardrums, ripped connective tissue from around the heart, the anchors that held it in place. Bleeding was immediate and fatal, with the rush of shrapnel being the final insult.
It was over almost as quickly as it had occured and left only two of the seven-man squad alive. The others lay in pools of blood, organs shocked into heavy masses of soup, clothing and flesh torn from their bodies. Frank's back would be peppered with scars for the rest of his life while the man at the rear lost his sight to the storm of shrapnel. Married at a young age, his wife had recently given birth to a boy. Now, he would never see either of them, and Frank would continue his life convinced that he was personally responsible for the deaths of his fellow Marines, as well as the mutilation of the only other surviving member of the squad.
After a two week stay in a field hospital, those in charge deemed Frank fit for duty, and he was, again, thrown back into the jungles of Vietnam. His body was healed, but the terrifying uncertainty of jungle warfare tested the limits of his sanity. On orders, Frank participated in the burning of whole villages, interrogating those believed to possess information on the whereabouts of the enemy, and witnessed acts of brutality that would leave his soul scarred forever. But within the next few months, allied commanders ordered the bombing of the entire country on the day of the Vietnamese new year after a cease-fire had been violated. Frank was one of thousands who fought what history recorded as the Tet offensive.
To say 'war is hell' is a vast understatement and usually spoken by those fortunate enough to have never heard the whistling of an incoming bomb, or the rattling of machine gun fire. But whether it was fortunate or not, Frank survived, returning home largely intact. At least, physically. He managed to avoid the protests, public rage, and accusations. However, any faith in humanity he may have previously possessed died in the jungles of Vietnam, impaled on punji sticks, riddled with bullets, and pinned against trees with sharpened wooden spikes. The person who returned to the town of Norway, in no way, resembled the person who left. Even his face had become mutilated by the stress of living with the devil in front him and death following close behind. So, with his hatred of the world in tow, Frank took what savings he had and bought a small one story house on the edge of Norway, a mile or so behind the cemetery. He felt far more comfortable living near the dead than among the living, and was rarely seen in town. He carried out the business of living at night – groceries, laundry, and other necessities. He had once attempted to commit suicide, having reached his limit of psychological pain. But he was discovered by the mailman, lying on the floor of his enclosed porch after cutting one of his wrists. It was believed that he wanted to be found, and that his attempt was, instead, a gesture. While he was recovering in the hospital, Frank had been visited by a psychologist hoping to get him to 'open up' but saw it as pointless, believing that the well-intentioned doctor could never understand what it was that had brought him to this point in his life. There was, however, one thing that he found soothing. Darkness. He would sleep during the day and wander at night. He found the quiet comforting, a place where the screams of dying men, women, and children were muffled by windless silence or the rumble of an oncoming storm. But the enemy still haunted him, presenting itself as pairs of green orbs, bounding through the woods, staying just inside the darkness that surrounded his house.
One night, the eyes wandered up to the windows as claws scratched at the door. Frank would always try to escape the war, but that night, he felt himself being pursued, and suddenly, the war returned. It came back to him in a flash, and within a few short minutes, he left through the back door dressed in camouflage, carrying a .306 deer rifle. Staying to the darkness bordering the beam of floodlights attached to the house, Frank circled around and outflanked the pack of four-footed invaders. Raising the rifle, he took careful aim at the coyote still scratching at the front door and taking a slow deep breath, held the animal in his sights and squeezed the trigger. The resulting shot sent the round exploding out of the barrel, cutting through the air and embedding itself into the animal's chest, just behind the armpit. Death was almost immediate as the rest of the pack scattered into the darkness. Walking out from the darkness, Frank approached the still warm carcass and proceeded to stomp on its head and neck. A passer-by would have seen his behavior as the act of a madman and they would not have been far from the truth. But as caught up as Frank was, he was still quite sane, or so he assumed. He simply saw an old adversary in a new form and as in the jungles of Vietnam he would hunt them down, vowing to kill every last one.
It wasn't long before his pursuit led him to the cemetery. The gray headstones stood quietly against the dark backdrop of the town's burial ground, sending Frank back to the damp jungles of Vietnam. He would crouch in the woods, watching for the slightest shadow, listening for the any break in the night air. But it was on a moonlit late spring night that Frank's fictional patrol through the cemetery took an unforeseen turn when he spotted two teenagers near the woods, sitting against a large granite crypt. However, it was the smell of burning marijuana that drew him closer. During his time in Vietnam, it was discovered that marijuana grew wild at the edge of the jungle, and sometimes it could be found covering entire fields. Between patrols and battles, Frank was among a few who found it a comforting relief from the trauma of war. It is unfortunate that it could not be a remedy for war itself.
Hiding just beyond the tree line, Frank moved in closer. The teenagers never saw so much as a shadow as he crept through the wooded night, his rifle cradled in the crook of his elbows. It wasn't until a pack of coyotes sprinted towards them that he decided to make his presence known and quickly circling around stood face-to-face with the charging pack. With the two teenagers lying on the ground, Frank took careful aim at the lead coyote, and squeezed the trigger. The crack of that single shot seemed to bounce off every gravestone in the cemetery as the ground became illuminated by a sudden flash as the smell of gunpowder filled the air. The round split the animal's skull, sending blood, brain matter, and shards of bone across the ground. In a low voice, Frank told the two teens to go home as he stepped up to the dead animal, taunting it as he pushed its head aside with the toe of his boot. The teenagers would later be questioned by the sheriff, but neither would be able to recall the event in any significant detail. The sudden terror of a rifle being fired over their heads left their minds clouded and forgetful.
Seeing the teens running out of the cemetery, Frank turned his attention to the carcass lying at his feet. He crouched down, looking at its misshapen face and spoke quietly.
“What the fuck do I do with you?”
Knowing the sheriff would, at some point, investigate the event, Frank picked up a rock and beating the dead animal's skull, broke enough of it away that he could reach his fingers in and fish out the bullet. After this grisly procedure, he put the bullet in his pocket and left for his small house nearly a mile away, leaving the dead animal lying where it dropped. Later that night, he watched from a window of his darkened house as the sheriff slowly drove by, shining his car's spotlight around the property. He knew the sheriff suspected him, but without the bullet as evidence, the sheriff could only speculate.
Four or five weeks had passed, and during that time, Frank was still wandering the woods, his rifle loaded and slung over his shoulder. Upon seeing another of what he saw as the enemy, he raised his rifle and prepared to fire.
“Frank,” a voice interrupted.
Frank spun around to find himself aiming at the sheriff's head, who had also drawn his weapon. He had been watching the cemetery and surrounding woods since the initial report of gunfire and had, somehow, been able to sneak up behind Frank in the middle of the night.
“Put it down Frank.”
Frank hesitated as a stray thought entered his mind. After living with the continued trauma of war, he wondered if this might be an easy way out, shot by a law enforcement officer. A psychologist would call it 'suicide by police', something a person might carry out should they be unable to pull the trigger on themselves. But having seen men, women, and children die at the hands of war, Frank knew that death was a place with no escape. Once the sheriff squeezed the trigger, he would not be able to change his mind and laying the rifle on the ground, he was suddenly blinded by the sheriff's flashlight as he was ordered to step back and turn around.
“I gotta tell ya' sheriff,” he began. “No one's ever been able to sneak up on me. Not since 'Nam. I'm actually impressed.”
The sheriff carefully stepped up and retrieved the rifle, and briefly examining it found a full magazine as well as a round in the chamber. He told frank to put his hands on his head and face him.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
They made eye contact as Frank spoke with an unemotional expression.
“You wouldn't understand.”
The sheriff quickly reached the limit of his patience, and stepped in close as he holstered his sidearm.
“God dammit, Frank,” he said. “Don't give me that Vietnam bullshit. I was in Saigon and you don't see me out here chasing charlie.”
Frank fell silent. He had been completely unaware that the sheriff had served, much less had participated in battle at Saigon.
“What can I tell ya' sheriff? They won't leave me alone, so I have to get them before they get me.”
The sheriff had dealt with his demons but managed to move on with his life. Frank, however, had not been so fortunate. His demons perpetuated themselves as nightmarish monsters and would likely be chasing him for the rest of his life.
Leaning the rifle up against a tree, the sheriff confronted Frank with a few questions.
“Now,” he began.
His voice was firm. His approach direct. The connection between this night and the shooting report was obvious but the sheriff wanted to hear it from Frank.
“You want to tell me about that coyote that was shot a couple weeks back?”
Frank quickly became irritated at the sheriff's question and immediately spoke up in his defense.
“Those kids would've been eaten alive if I hadn't killed that fuckin' thing!”
The sheriff knew he was right and found himself in a difficult situation. Frank was clearly trespassing, and carrying a firearm on public property. However, had he not been present when Samantha and Henry had been there just two or three weeks before, both would have been torn to shreds, their remains left for the grisly discovery of the next person to pass through. The sheriff also knew that without evidence, an arrest would be a waste of time. The most he could do was issue a citation and give Frank a stern warning.
Two days later, an article appeared in the newspaper outlining the incident and warning those living near the cemetery to report anything unusual they might see. The sheriff had the article placed with the intention of making him Frank feel threatened with a bit of public embarrassment and as time passed, it seemed to have worked. It was also a matter of public safety. After Eric's arrest earlier in the year, the last thing the town needed was a delusional man wandering the cemetery with a deer rifle.