The Battle

The knock on my door marked my appointment as arriving right on time.

“Let's not waste time, most people don't have much to talk to me about, and you sir, you made an appointment. What do you want from me?”

“I must know about the battle, please tell me”
His oddly shaped face was staring at mine, trying to catch my eyes with his, which were leery and seemed disguised by his face.

“I can tell you, but if I do, you have to believe all of it, because nobody believes any of what I say anymore.”

“I imagine I could believe anything you say, just please, tell me.”

“Alright. I have an account written in my journal. Just for freaks like you who want every possible detail. I put some creativity into it, so it may not be perfectly accurate, but it's a little more entertaining.”

I make sure that the camera in the room has sight of him as I turn to my bookshelf, reaching for a mundane looking book that contains my writings on the battle, on that doesn't actually contain my writing, but my father's.

The soldiers lay in wait, in a field just north of Lumberlin, and as the wind stirred the grass into their face, one blade at a time, they all lay perfectly still, ignoring the cravings they all had to bring their hands slowly to their face, scraping the jagged edges of their nails across their skin, relieving that odd, itchy sensation that seems so common when you lay in the grass. There was a lake to the edge of the field, but the men were told not to drink from it under any circumstances, for apparently the factories that cleared out during the war dumped all sorts of disturbing chemicals into it. So the men were stuck in that field for days, no fresh water, as little movement as possible, and none of any of that until the predicted battle took place. Before they spread out, back in Lumberlin, the men had a camp with soldiers from other platoons, and the men were told of a small break in which a plane would be flying over their position, making enough noise and covering them enough for them to grab as much water from the tents as they could before having to drop silently into position again. That day had finally come, and they nervously looked at their timepieces, each waiting for the exact moment to run. They heard a plane coming from the south, and just ass it came overhead, the men scattered and ran. But for some reason, though the plane was overhead, it was getting louder, and they all smelled this stench, this putrid, dense odor that persisted.

Up in the plane, the men tried to prepare themselves for the last thing they expected to happen in the war. Limb by limb, the men were all changing, the hue of their skin intensifying to a thick purple, the flesh of their bodies becoming the consistency of silly putty. In the instant of their worst fear, the plane crashed into the field they had been protecting.

As the passengers crawled out of the debris, they became the target of each rifle held by those who were already in the field. They thought that the aircraft had been overtaken by aliens, and they were the first to witness the next form of take-over in the war. They shot each other, the aliens armed with the passenger's armory, and thy fought each other until they couldn't any longer. Every last shot fired, every person in the battle dead.

What was one of the most unusual aspects of this battle was that the bodies hadn't been found until about 3 days after the battle, found by a family who was fleeing further south into England. The bodies of the field soldiers were somewhat decayed already, but the contaminated bodies of the aircraft passengers were completely intact. The father went to investigate the purple bodies, and realized quickly that they had dog tags on, same as the other dead soldiers in the field. He had not a clue about why or how the bodies had been turned purple, or why the purple bodies were preserved, but he had seen all he had wanted to, and they left. His testimony is the only one given that was not military, and the military wanted to keep it quiet, therefore making him seem insane. Luckily his family had the funds to fly to America after the war ended, meaning he didn't finish his life in an asylum, but his family knew not to speak of it, for fear of the same life Britain would have given them.

Of course, with any “conspiracy” comes a cult following, and just like the youth during any war, they ate up any hint of conspiracy they could find. One group of activists found this family before the war was over, and they formed a punk band. One album per conspiracy spread about the most bizarre conspiracies one could ever think of. I believe that they made some of the more confusing ones up to make the others seem true.”

As soon the man with the odd face thanked me and left, my father walked downstairs and began to make lunch. He wrapped his purple arms around me and gave me a hug, thanking me for keeping him safe.