CD Story Review #11: "The Officer's Club"

CD Issue #1

THIS BLOG EXPLAINED:

Richard Chizmar founded Cemetery Dance Magazine in 1988. It’s still in production today (now managed by author/ editor Brian James Freeman) & it’s considered one of the best horror mags of all time, having published and even discovered many of the genre’s most famous and successful authors. This blog series is my attempt to read, review, and research every story CD has ever printed. As of Issue #72 (January 2015), there are 540. I clearly have a long way to go.

STORY: “The Officer’s Club”

AUTHOR: Roman A Ranieri

CD APPEARANCE: Issue #1 (Dec. 1988: VOl. 1, Iss. 1), story 11 of 12.

PLOT:

Donald Wallace wakes suddenly to find himself in an all-white room. A amn is there wearing camoflague & calling him “Major Wallace”. Donald decudes he is in a military hospital, but is confused because he, too, is wearing Army fatigues even though he retired more than ten years prior. The other man then tells Wallace he is going into combat in mere minutes.

Wallace protests & complains, but the other man- whose nametag reads “PARKER” explains he is Wallace’s commanding officer, even though the chevrons on his uniform indicates he is merely a First Sergeant.

Sgt. Parker reminds Wallace of Delta Company and the battle of Kham Duc, words that instantly bring feelings of dread and remorse to Wallace. At that battle, lots of men died on Wallace’s orders. Parker then accuses Wallace of his negligence, selfishness, and uncaring of their lives, revealing that he himself was one of the victims of that battle.

Parker further explains that Wallace himself is now dead, having succumed to a massive heart attack the night before. In a fit of fear and anger, Wallace exlaims that he can’t be where he appears, that God has not yet judged him. Parker explains God has already done so, and that the memory has been wiped since no damned soul should be allowed to see the glorious, beautiful face of God an remember.

A Trench With Only One Officer

Suddenly, the white room is gone and in exchange Wallace finds himself standing in a deep trench of red rock and sandy soil. In the trench with him are thousands of other men. Each are soldiers. Their uniforms indicate, first, that they are from many countries all around the worlds and, second, that they are also from many different time periods and historic battles. Last of all, Wallace realizes each of the men in uniform are also all officers.  

“Sort of like the ultimate Officer’s Club. Eh, Major?” Parker says. And before Wallace can respond, a whistle sounds from an unseen location and suddenly the thousands of uniformed, dead officers are all running and climbing out of the trench. Each is followed & pushed by a lower-ranking, dead soldier like Sgt. Parker.

Immediately upon entering the battlefield Wallace is shot in the hand. The pain and surprise is immense. He sees the approaching opposing army is made entirely of demons. In their horrible hands is carried every weapon of past, present, and future imaginable.

Wallace steps on a mine. His calf and leg muscles are ripped from his leg, yet he somehow keeps running. All the other officers around him are suffering the same fates: injured and maimed, they all continue to run.

A Nazi Colonel next to Wallace is engulfed in flames & Wallace’s shirt and the skin of his chest and stomach are soon burning and charring.

The armies meet. A giant bat-demon uses a samurai sword to hack off Wallace’s right arm at the shoulder. Wallace finally stops running & falls to the ground. The bat-demon raises the sword and cuts Wallace in two. Only then does the battlefield and his pain begin to ebb away.

Major Donald Wallace wakes to Parker’s voice. He is again standing in the trench. The story ends with the line, “From somewhere unseen, the whistle blew.”

MY REVIEW: 4 out of 5 stars.

CD Blurb on Author Roman A. Ranieri

What Ranieri did in this story was very simple: he gave us a view of hell from the perspective of the men who participated in it. The grunt soldiers (who are, it is strongly insinuated, victims of their own superiors) get their own kind of revenge by watching & commanding the officers who allowed them to die.

What caught my attention most of all was the all-encompasing nature to the Hell Renieri created. This wasn’t just Major Donald Wallace’s story of retribution, it was the story of retribution paid to literally thousands and thousands of military men throughout all of time. Combatants from both sides of every battle ever fought are represented. This tells us that Ranieri views all war- or at least all officers of war- to be evil. He included many specifics to push this thought home… the uniforms are of British, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Australian, Italian, American, Mexican, & Spanish origins. The weapons mentioned included machine guns, rifles, flamethrowers, bows & arrows, spears, & swords.  The overall picture presented is one of world-wide proportions, and it makes the overall story feel much bigger than it otherwise would have.

Another facet I liked was the personalization given to our protagonist, Major Wallace. *He* after all, is the one we witness waking to the surprise of his life. *He* is the one whose leg is destroyed in the land mine. *He* is the one who feels the anguish of pain with his many wounds and his eventual relief when he finally “dies”. And, of course, it is *he* who we watch as the final line reveals the true fate- an infinitety of suffering- that these thousands of officers will have.

This combination of seeing one man represent the many and yet seeing the many in their diversity of cultures and perspectives (the addition of the Nazi Colonel was a particularly nice touch) is a powerful one. I can only imagine how their thousands of stories are told over and over again, all so very similar even after all their centuries of hatred towards one another. It’s an entertaining message, and a good one.

Yet I could not quite give Ranieri 5 stars. The writing (ie: his ability to “turn a phrase”) was simple, even a bit lacking, and the endint to the story was predictable. Not that either of these is a knock to the overall piece. I enjoyed the story and would gladly read more of Ranieri’s writing. But I’d be lying if I said he rocked my world with this one. He gave me what I expected and hoped for, but not much more.

Regular readers of this blog know that I always try to share something I learned about the craft of writing in each of my reviews. In the case of “The Officer’s Club,” I’m struggling to do so. Yet I don’t think this is because the story fell short in any way. I think it’s because it merely followed the typical formula of what I think of as any old-school horror story… Act I: We meet a character for whom we quickly feel sorry. (Wallace is confused? Poor guy. Wallace is *dead*?! Uh-oh. This does not bode well). Act II: We learn the truth of the situation/ that character, and it’s horrible. (Wallace is in Hell, he experiences physical agony, and he totally deserves it). Act III: The horror within the story is pushed to another level & ends with a strong element of  Mwuuu-Hahaha! (Wallace isn’t the only one- there are thousands more like him- and their suffering will happen over & over again). So I guess, upon more thinking, I realize now that despite my own preclivity toward telling stories that are unique or have a different perspective on well-told tales, Ranieri’s piece has reminded me that simple, even formulaic stories are still entertaining. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

A Formula I Don't Understand