Prologue

The explosion.

Captain Allen Farrow heard it again and again.

Pieces of flesh splattered against his face. A dismembered thigh hurtled through the air and smashed against the back of his neck, knocking him unconscious.

"Kawhump!"

"Kawhump!"

The haze cleared and he opened his eyes. The black figure standing before him laughed loudly. Its foot lashed out and caught him in the jaw, knocking him to the ground.

Again and again the foot crunched into his body, sinking into his stomach, bouncing off his spine, the back of his head. He could taste the blood dripping into his mouth from his injured lip and feel the contusions growing like eggs over his body.

There was silence.

Farrow groaned as he rolled to his side and felt the bonds tighten around his wrists and ankles.

"Skipper? Skipper?"

Sergeant Monroe's voice filtered through the pain.

The sergeant's gaunt, bloody face wavered into focus beside him. Blood caked in a blob where his left eye should have been, his shoulder was ripped open and flies roosted on the exposed, raw flesh like tiny, black, iridescent vultures.

Monroe coughed, blood pouring from his mouth as he tried to speak. Voices jabbered behind him and Farrow looked up.

Three Viet Cong women stood looking down at him, laughing. AK-47 assault weapons were slung over their shoulders and hand grenades dangled from the thin, black belts pinching their waists.

A young-faced girl pointed at Monroe and jabbered rapidly. The other women laughed and drew knives.

"Jesus Christ," Allen Farrow muttered as he watched the women yank Monroe's head back and plunge the blades into the man's throat. Farrow shut his eyes and waited for the knives to pierce his throat.

A stinging blow to the back of his neck sent him sprawling.

They carried him as they might a dead beast, bound to a long tube of wood, his back bouncing off the ground, his wrists and feet tied above him.

He awoke, tasting the flies clinging to his blood-soaked lips. His body ached and blood trickled down his arms from his wrists.

Dumping him by a slow-moving stream, the women pulled their black pajamas off and splashed into the water, laughing and giggling.

Frantically eyeing the untended rifles laying a few feet from him, Farrow began to twist his hands, sawing them along the wooden shaft's ridge as he felt them loosen.

"Boum-boum."

He stopped and looked up. The women were standing naked above him, their breasts dripping water down onto his peeling face. The young one's raven hair glistened as she yakked at the others.

"Boum-boum," she repeated, reaching down and grabbing his penis. He screamed as the pain tore through him. The girl yanked his cock, stretching it as she snapped it like an old piece of rope she was trying to break. For a moment, Farrow screamed, afraid the appendage would rip out by its roots.

"Bitches! Filthy whores!" He spat the words through clenched teeth as the girl yanked his prick again. She relaxed her grip on his pole and began yelling commands at the bystanders.

Giggling childishly, the fattest of the trio waddled over to a box near the rifles and squatted over it. The young one slapped Farrow's face and spat betel nut juice at him, distracting his attention from the heavy one.

The fat woman returned, pinching her heavy legs together as she lumbered his way. She positioned herself above his face and squatted so that her cavernous vagina hovered inches from his face. He watched with gelled eyes as her snatch shut out the light and covered his nose and mouth. He opened wide, trying to suck in a breath of air.

First one, then another dropped from her gash into his mouth. They were hard and brittle, scampering across his tongue, pushing their feelers against his cheeks.

Farrow gagged and shut his mouth, feeling the roaches squash between his teeth as he fought for air.

He pumped his arms madly up and down and felt them connect with his tormentor's face. A bright splash of sunlight smashed against his eyes as her body rolled off. Without thinking, he leapt to the left, where he had seen the rifles gleaming in the sun only moments ago.

Fingernails clawed at his face as he scrabbled for the weapon. He swung back over his shoulders and knocked the woman to the ground. He grabbed the rifle and leveled it, pulling the trigger point blank as the two women rushed toward him, knives in their hands. As if in slow motion, their advance slowed before his eyes, their heads jerked back, their shoulders sloped forward, red holes dotted their faces, chunks of flesh exploded from their foreheads and cheeks as they fell in a bloody mass at his feet.

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