Eddie's Journal
July 17th, 2000 maybe
Bad day all round. Full body aches and blinded by the light. Reved up like a deuce a-motoring in the night! Doc isn't sure what it is. Leo thinks the rain washed some nerve agent remnants out of the trees. I think its aliens. Leo's probably right. More comforting than I don't know.
We waited out our eyes, it took a few hours, and went back on the road. We found the remains of our marauder friends about half an hour later.
Two UAZ jeeps, one flipped on its side in the mud, a MG ripped off it's mount and thrown high into a tree and much blood. A torn up trail led off into the woods. Alpha and I got stuck checking the UAZs. The Cap and Moon-Pie that's what she's calling Lewellen went to check the trail. The came back not long after with a smashed rifle and a boot with the foot still in it. She told us the trail broke into three parts and there were bits and pieces of man, uniform, and gear scattered all over. After that we finished out job in a rush; taking one of the UAZs and stripping the other before heading out.
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Czestochawa.
Those memories have already been jogged enough. Getting here is a slap in the face. I was held way back from the battle itself, but after wards I drove these roads. All older and torn up now, but still somehow familiar. Then we crest some hills and see the city. The things I've done.
Not a city, just fields of broken teeth all the way to the river.
I've tried to rationalize it over the years. It was just property. We'd held the city for months. When the Soviets pushed back we told the populace what we were going to do. I'm told they all left. I know some stayed. Some always do.
The things I've done. Fucking maudin You always remember your first.
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Crazy Poles.
I guided us around the big minefield east of the city and there they are. Two wagons and about 10 men. Crawling around, safing and pulling mines out of the field. Damn dangerous work.
Leo and Moon-Pie got to go forward in the lead UAZ. Got to talking. Cap decided to give them marauders UAZ for info and as a good will gesture. The lead man, Adom, says they're entrepreneurs out of Krakow. There's good cash in mines.
He asked if we had a doctor. One of his men had an accident and all Adom had was a barely trained field medic. So she volunteered ours Hearts and Mines!
We all went to their cap in a nearby copse. A few tents, latrine, and cook site. Cap, Doc and Leo followed Adom to one of the tents. Leo filled me in on it later.
One of their guys went off into the big city a few days ago. Treasure hunting. He came back out of his mind and without his eyes. Looks like he clawed them out. God damn. Leo says he kept hysterically ranting about the Lady and her child. How he wasn't worthy. Doc gave him some of our dwindling supply of sedative and they talked once he slowed down.
Short story -- he went into the city hunting for the TREASURE. Instead he found tunnels with all the bodies of those the Americans had murdered. He found soldiers guarding the Lady and her Child. The soldiers turned on him b/c he wasn't worthy of beholding their holy glory. So he ripped his own eyes out to give to her in repentance. The soldiers took him back to the world and he came here.
Adom says this guy never was right in the head. Would tell anyone who would listen that this was the Tribulation and Jesus would be coming soon. That we were all destined for the fires.
Doc says his self-inflicted the eye trauma, but his arms are marked with defensive knife wounds. Sounds so sterile that way. Cap thinks he really saw something under the city. He couldn't take it and snapped. She thinks he found an entrance near or under the Jasna Gora. If there's any way Fabian Filipowicz is still alive, it would be guarding the Black Madonna.
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