All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka Read Free Book Online Page A

where I’m going when I’m pushing this thing.”
    “Nah, it’s not your fault. I jumped out right in front of you.”
    “Hey, don’t I know you?” Rachel peered down at poor flattened me with her green eyes.
    A sheepish grin spread across my face. “Looks like we ran into each other again . . .”
    “I knew it! You’re the new recruit in the 17th.”
    “Yeah. Sorry for all the trouble,” I said. A spud rolled off my belly.
    With a hand on her hip, Rachel surveyed the damage. Her delicate eyebrows sank. “Couldn’t have spread them out farther if you tried.”
    “Sorry.”
    “It’s their fault for being so round.” She arched her back slightly so her chest stuck out. It was hard to ignore.
    “I guess.”
    “You ever see potatoes that round?”
    I hadn’t. Not among the tubers littering the floor either.
    “Shouldn’t take that long to grab them, if you help.”
    “No—I mean, yeah.”
    “Well, which is it?”
    The clock was ticking. If I wasn’t out of here now, I’d be dead tomorrow. I didn’t have time to stand around grabbing potatoes—or anything else for that matter. But something else was kicking in, an attraction I’d felt for this girl since the first time I’d met her, right after my posting at the base.
    I sat there on the ground, stalling and pretending to be in pain.
    I was just about to give her my answer when I heard the sound of precisely measured footsteps approaching from behind.
    “What are you doing?” came a growl like a hound from the gates of Hell. Ferrell.
    He’d appeared from around the corner of the barracks and was now surveying the potatoes strewn across the concrete path with disapproval.
    “I-I was pushing my cart, and—”
    “This your mess, Kiriya?”
    “Sir, yes sir!” I scrambled to my feet. A wave of vertigo washed over me. He rolled his eyes and fixed his gaze on me.
    “S-Sir?”
    “You’re hurt. Let me take a look.”
    “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”
    Ferrell stepped closer and touched my head, right at the hairline.
    A sharp pain shot across my scalp. His sausage-like fingers pried open the wound. Warm blood spurted from my forehead to the beat of an unseen rock band. The stream ran lazily down the side of my nose, touched the corner of my mouth, then hung briefly on the tip of my chin until a steady drip drip drip began. A rose of fresh blood blossomed on the concrete. The sharp smell of iron filled my nostrils. Rachel gasped.
    “Hrmm. Nice, clean entry wound. What’d you hit it on?”
    Rachel stepped in. “My cart fell over. I’m sorry.”
    “Is that how it happened?”
    “Actually, I’m the one who ran into her, but yeah, pretty much.”
    “Right. Well, it’s not as bad as it looks. You’ll be fine,” Ferrell said, giving the back of my head a playful slap. A spray of blood flew from my brow, staining my shirt. Leaving me where I was, he walked over to the corner of the barracks and shouted, loud enough to scare the cicadas off the walls, “Yonabaru! Get your butt out here!”
    “There some soldierin’ needs doin’? I’m here to—oh. Morning, Rachel. Sergeant, another fine day in the corps, I trust? So fine, it looks like the concrete up and sprouted potatoes.”
    “Shut your piehole and get some men out here to pick these up.”
    “Who, me?”
    “Well he’s not going to be picking anything up, is he?” Ferrell nodded in my direction.
    Yonabaru gaped. “Dude, what hit you? You look like you went twenty in the cage with a three-hundred-pound Irishman.” To the sergeant: “Wait, that means Keiji’s the one who knocked all these over?” Back to me: “Helluva way to start the day, goin’ and ruinin’ a guy’s morning like that.”
    “What’s the matter, don’t you want to help?”
    “Don’t be silly! For you, I’d pick up anything. Potatoes, pumpkins, land mines—”
    “Enough. Is there anyone in this lousy excuse for a platoon whose head isn’t lodged securely up his asshole?”
    “That hurts, Sarge.