Free The Compass of His Bones and Other Stories by Jeff VanderMeer Page A

broke a window and they crawled inside, holed up near two televisions playing at low volume. MacDiarmid panted, his sides aching. He sagged against the wall and listened to the rumble of support planes as they dodged anti-aircraft fire. The phpht phpht of tracer bullets stitched itself into his eardrums.
    "Deep shit," he said to Conrad. His voice, he knew, was lined with fatigue. "We're in deep shit if Southern Command ever finds out."
    Conrad shrugged.
    "Maybe you're right." MacDiarmid struggled out of his Santa suit and threw it to one side. It was flecked with mud and dirt and blood.
    "Feliz Navidad," the boy said, his face shining under the circle of the flashlight.
    MacDiarmid made a choking sound.
    "Should we...we should just stay here until we get support, don't you think?" The sour ache had soaked into his bones. His hands shook, ever so slightly, and he could not control them.
    Conrad shrugged again as he listened to his shortwave. He had turned the volume high and MacDiarmid heard her voice, saying, "You don't want to fight. You just want to lie down and go to sleep. You just want us to comfort you..."
    Comfort.
    "Turn it off, Conrad."
    Conrad's gun-metal eyes bored into him.
    "Turn it off, Conrad. Now."
    They watched T.V. The set on the right showed the President at a press conference. MacDiarmid turned up the volume and realized the President was talking about their operation.
Even now, the evil dictator dragged from his blasphemous lair. Our brave boys stabilizing the region for democracy. Remember Beirut? Never again! Don't cry for Argentina. Not this cowhand. The United States' best interests are served. By proctating American lives, we relieve the people of Bananama of this disciple of Hitler. Pure evil, guys and girls. I tell you what. His job is sniffing drugs. Well, we can no longer tolerate such a-buses in Central America. Sending them to our young people here in the United States...
    A warm glow settled over MacDiarmid. It was still comforting to be able to listen to the half-truths, as if the President was watching over his soldiers. Once he had believed everything, had even believed he could have the army and a family too—that he had joined the army to protect his family, like a knight in the age of chivalry—believed so utterly that he had had no use for the normal talismans, no use for rabbit's feet or four leaf clovers. And now...now he had Conrad.
    "I had to kill you, Conrad," he said. "I had to."
    He felt himself growing sleepy, tried to fight it.
    "Feliz Navidad," the boy said, his face shining under the circle of the flashlight.
    "You were out of control."
    If only the President could watch over him, then perhaps he could resist the call of the woman, of La Siesta De La Muerte , until it was all over. Only the meaning of the words escaped him...
    MacDiarmid woke from dreams of the woman, interwoven with the flat, desolate landscapes, until it was her body that formed the rolling mesas, her skin that he ached to explore. He had begun his dream thinking of the President and then Mark, whom he had not seen for six months, but they had faded quickly enough.
    He nudged Conrad.
    "Fifteen minutes to rendezvous. Guess we'll have to miss it." The grinning rictus of skull through the weathered skin seemed reassuring, like a stuffed bear or other token of childhood.
    Guatemala. Everything had changed.
    Conrad nodded, pointed to the television screens.
    The President still spoke on the right, but the visage of Zapata himself leered on the left. He looked worse than in his press photos. The man's face was pock-marked and he had adorned his body with the same poultice of feathers and teeth MacDiarmid had seen on the Bananamanian soldiers. Zapata held a chicken's carcass over his head so that the blood could splash down onto his arms and shoulders. He mumbled something under his breath and looked right out at both of them as if he could see into the looted shop.
    Conrad made a whining sound.
    Zapata picked up