By Holly Scott

But what of the girl?

The dead man was ugly in a way that 

made Matthew want to turn around. Bloated, flies buzzing around him in a maddening swarm, angry and panicked at being disturbed by his approach. The man’s skin was discoloured and blotchy in a way that made him feel icky all over. His mouth was sagged open and his eyes were all veins.

But what of the girl?

She had to be around somewhere. She 

clearly wasn’t lying dead on the floor with her husband. Even though the door to the little thatched hut was closed, it didn’t quite seem to sit right on its hinges. In fact, the whole house was like this, slightly off-kilter, lopsided. It had a certain charm to it though, a home-y feel. It was decorated with fishing and sewing gear, things both of them would have liked, remnants of both of their lives conjoining and intertwining in their shared space. A little cot was set up in one of the corners, surrounded by boxes of baby stuff that had been opened but not yet unpacked. They were going to start a family, Matthew thought with the barest spark of remorse. He turned to look back at the man’s corpse, but he couldn’t bear to look at it for very long.

They didn’t pick a very good time for it.

He continued to study the little house for 

some time. Two rooms; a large living space with a kitchen on one side and the bed and cot on the other. The other room was a bathroom. There was a dingy metal bathtub and a compost toilet. A little trap-door sat in the middle of the room, carefully hidden under the rug. It was common to hide valuables in those types of set-ups here. When Matthew went to lift it up, though, all he found was a small compartment with a few meagre coins that had most likely been dropped when the larger collection had been taken. It could have been the girl, going on the run and preparing to start a new life. Or her house had just been ransacked after people started realising no one was home anymore.

One of the pair must have loved flowers 

quite a lot, because they were hung up throughout the house everywhere, and put in home-made vases on just about every available table and counter. They had all started to wilt by now, the water in the vases becoming old and starting to stink the place up.

But what of the girl?

Matthew quickly made his way to the 

front door, bumping it open with his foot.

“Any sign of her?”

“Negative.”

“Really? Nothing at all?”

“No, sir.”

LT. Lowe sighed deeply, running a hand 

over his sweaty face. It was always so hot in the jungle. “Christ’s sake,” he said angrily. “Those fuckin’ idiots only had one job, and they couldn’t even do that properly…”

The “job” in question really had nothing to 

do with the girl at all. Matthew knew that the rest of the platoon—and LT. Lowe, for that matter—couldn’t have cared less about what happened to her or where she went. It was more about the orders they were given, as it always was. Seek and destroy. Leave no witnesses. Leave no enemies to run crying to some higher-up about how many soldiers there were, where they were headed next, or what they planned to do when they got there. It was the way they had to fight the war. 

“All the money in the house is gone, sir,” 

Matthew said as the two of them began walking side by side, like the information would be any help whatsoever in locating her whereabouts. “I think she might have grabbed it all up and headed for An Loc.”

“I don’t give a shit about her money. I 

want her. She’ll never make it that far anyway,” Lowe snapped harshly. He was frustrated; Matthew understood that. Still, something about Lowe’s tone made him slow down, eventually coming to a halt behind him. Lowe continued ranting. “If all of you had just done your jobs properly and did what I said, we wouldn’t be in this fucking mess.”

First things first, let’s get things straight: 

this wasn’t Matthew’s fault. In fact, he hadn’t even been present when they raided the house, or when that whole big mess went down, when they shot the husband and failed to apprehend the skinny, five-foot-nothing girl that looked half his age. 

Matthew turned back one last time to look 

at the house. It was one of the last houses in the village, right on the edge, where everything started to get swallowed up by the tangle of jungle trees. If he really focused, he could still hear the buzzing flies, the sound of them making his head feel like a swarming bug’s nest. The man’s face was still burning a hole in his mind.

The closest neighbour’s house was still far 

enough away for the people to not really know anything about each other. Matthew supposed it was an intentional choice on their part; to live far away enough to be able to do their own thing without outside interference, but still close enough to the rest of the village not to be suspicious. It was why none of the neighbours knew anything about the couple. It was why none of them could answer the question, “họ có phải là kẻ thù không” Are they the VC?”

“Matthew,” Lowe barked at him suddenly, 

and Matthew turned slower than his lieutenant would have liked. “What are you doing? Off with the fairies again, are you?”

It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all, 

what Matthew did. He was about say as much, and he was about to tell Lowe that what went down wasn’t his fault, and that he should stop blaming him for things that he wasn’t even there for—

— But no. Matthew just plainly said, “No, 

sir. Just thinking.”

The search dragged on a lot longer than 

Matthew would have liked, but he knew better than to voice those opinions. However, soon came the time for Lowe to summon the others, and for them to gather around shame-faced as they attempted to cobble together a story that didn’t make them look like complete morons. Before they got the chance to, though, LT Lowe turned and asked Matthew. He always did. 

“I wasn’t there, sir.” Matthew said.

“What? Why didn’t you say something 

earlier?”

“I tried to, sir.”

Annoyed, Lowe turned to ask someone 

random. Kurt Whitlock. Matthew had no idea why. Honesty was never a quality Kurt was known for.

“Kurt, what happened?”

“Sir, I wasn’t there either.”

“Seriously? Then who was there? Why 

were none of you there doing your jobs —”

“We’ve figured this out already,” Kurt 

said. “It was all Jamie’s fault.”

There was a loud gasp from somewhere to 

Matthew’s left. “It was fucking not!”

“Was too.”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

“Was—”

“Enough!” Lowe snapped, and the two of 

them abruptly fell silent. “Kurt, will you just tell me how you lost the girl?”

“Well,” Kurt drawled. “I wasn’t there, so it 

isn’t really my place to say, but Cameron told me that Jamie killed the old guy. Shot him dead, even though we weren’t supposed to. The girl—”

“It wasn’t my fault, okay?” Jamie said 

quickly, interrupting him. “I mean, these gooks are too fucking hard to work with! They never listen—”

Lowe turned to him, snapping harshly, 

“Just shut up! A blind three year old could do this shit better than you could.”

For once, Jamie had nothing to say.

But what of the girl?

Nothing. The girl would be long gone by 

now. Dead, in all probability. There was no finding her now. She would disappear. Become nothing more than a ghostly wisp in the jungle trees. Perhaps she had wanted it that way. 

“Matthew. Do the thing.”

Ah. The dreaded words.

Let’s be clear: “The Thing” was not 

something Matthew personally enjoyed doing. It gave him nausea. Headaches. Nosebleeds. The typical symptoms associated with letting the mind wander and poke around in places it didn’t really belong in. The spirit realm. At least, Matthew thought it was the spirit realm. There were dead people everywhere, and when Lowe gave the cue, Matthew had to search amongst all their faces for whoever it was that needed finding.

“Yes, sir.” Matthew said, tone carefully 

neutral. 

First things, first, the dead didn’t speak.

They stunk like they were sick. They 

probably were. Their bones smelt wrong. Rotten.

Blood and water and smoke and all sorts 

of disgusting smells flooded his nose, almost choking him. War was messy. Death wasn't pretty.

The dead stood and watched him for a 

while, attention piqued when they realised he wasn’t really one of them, but he could walk amongst them nonetheless. They seemed to think he’d die, and they’d get to rip him up and keep his soul, but he didn’t, so they didn't. 

He smelt good greens and clear water 

somewhere up above the smoke and blood, and it cut a searing line through the reek of death. Flowers. He smelt flowers. Matthew sucked in a deep breath and searched for her.

But what of the girl?

The ghosts made it difficult.

Being able to see them was a curse, 

without a doubt, because most of them were mean, sadistic beasts, out to drive a seeing man mad. But they’ve been known to be helpful. Matthew even knew a few.

He didn’t know any of these faces, though. At least they didn’t bug him too much. 

He found her. Finally, Flowers and vines 

amongst fire and death. She was running. She was surprisingly fast, too, getting hung up in the scrub, but pushing through nonetheless. For a moment, Matthew could almost believe that she got away. Maybe —

— But then she tripped and fell into a ditch 

she hadn’t seen, hitting the ground with a yelp and a sickening crack.

Matthew’s eyes snapped open. 

Jamie and his friend Cameron were at his 

side to offer him a ratty, dirty handkerchief.  A stream of blood flowed freely out of both nostrils. Kurt offered Matthew a smoke and a lighter to help steady his nerves.

“Well?” Lowe asked, impatient.

Matthew took his time lighting his smoke 

before answering. “She fell down in a ditch. Broke her neck.”

“She fell and broke her neck?”

“That’s what I said, sir.”

“Where?”

“In a ditch.”

“Where is the ditch, Matthew?”

“Why does it matter? She’s dead. Her 

husband is dead. Your mission is failed —”

“For Christ’s sake! Just tell me where it 

is.”

Matthew shrugged and took a drag of his 

smoke, pointing to a cluster of mangrove trees within sight of the house. “Over that way, sir. She didn’t even make it 300 metres.”

Lowe ignored him, instead walking off 

and grumbling to Jamie about how he couldn’t believe that he couldn’t find her so close to her house. 

“It wasn’t my fault,” Jamie said again, 

voice sounding far away. “How am I supposed to find shit in all this? Look at it.”

Matthew considered the cherry end of his 

cig for a moment before flicking it away, a red hot ember that dropped away to nothing in the near dark. Jamie was right, though Matthew would never admit it out loud. It would be hard to find anything — or anyone — in there. It would also be easy to get lost, so Matthew kept a keen ear out for the sound of clamouring voices as he finally moved to follow them and give them more specific directions. He didn’t need to. About halfway there he heard a loud gasp, and he knew they’d found her. He heard the flies buzzing before he could see them.

“Damn,” is all Cameron said. It was the 

only thing anyone said, because the rest of them were silent, standing around like they couldn’t quite believe what they saw, all huddled up like penguins. 

Matthew bumped the back of Kurt’s foot 

with his own, and Kurt stepped out of his way so he could get a look.

She was in there, alright. Fly-blown and a 

sickly grey colour all over, just like her husband.

“Fuck,” Lowe said, shaking his head. “She 

was supposed to be a prisoner. Both of ‘em were. You boys can’t do anything right.”

“Damm,” Cameron said again. “Matthew, 

you’re such a freak.”

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