The Long Night

by Jessica Scott

  Sam's stomach chose that moment to rumble its discontent. Still he avoided eating. He wasn't sure that he wouldn't puke if they ended up convoying out of there alone.

  "You realize that cheese is going to keep you from shitting right for a week, right?" Sam said. He sat, right on something that poked him in the soft part of his ass.

  Hale shrugged. "Occupational hazard."

  "Yeah, well, so's death but I'm not in a rush for that, either." He tried to shift and move the rock under him into a less pointy position.

  "Lewis talked to you, didn't he?" Hale said.

  "Does it matter?"

  Hale sighed and bunched up the cracker wrapper, throwing it on the ground. "I'm not crazy, you know."

  "I know that. No one said you were."

  "Except Lewis. He's always busting my balls."

  Sam sniffed and shifted, trying to get the rock out from under his ass. He felt around beneath him and found the source of his pain. It wasn't a rock but a spent shell casing. "Will you two cut the shit?"

  Hale snorted then took a pull off his CamelBak. "I have two brothers. I don't fight with them like I fight with Lewis."

  "Yeah, well, your brothers don't have your back when the shit and the fan decide to make a porno, either," Sam said.

  Hale wiped his mouth and shifted to lift his head from his sight to look at Sam. "I know. I'm just not sleeping well, that's all."

  "When's the last time you got any sleep?"

  "Couple nights ago. Fits and starts. I'm just edgy, that's all." He glanced up at Sam. "I'm not going to blow my brains out or anything. You can count on me, okay?"

  Sam gripped his shoulder. "I know that, man. I'm just checking on you, that's all."

  "Thanks. But I think you should be more worried about that kid with the Bible. He hasn't moved from his corner since you shot the major's coffee pot."

  Sam sighed. He was never going to live down the coffee pot. "He's not in my squad. I've got other problems to worry about. Let the major do something for once that doesn't involve crashing comms."

  Hale grinned and turned his gaze back to his sector. "Did you ever watch The Exorcist?"

  "Now that's a random question. Yeah. Everyone has, haven't they?"

  "I hadn't. ’Til last week. You know they filmed part of that movie up north of here? Some place called al Hadr."

  Sam frowned and glanced up at the falling darkness. Stars fought through the haze and the smoke to carpet the night sky. "Let me guess. You watched it and that's why you can't sleep?"

  "Every time I close my eyes, I see the air shifting in front of my face. Shadows dancing. It's creepy as hell."

  Sam squeezed and released Hale's shoulder as relief washed over him. He shouldn't be relieved that his guy was scared from a movie, but it was so much better than the alternative of Hale possibly blowing his head off because he wasn't sleeping. A fake demon? Yeah, Sam could deal with that. "Dude, you brought this shit on yourself," he said with a chuckle.

  "Thanks for the sympathy, dick face," Hale grumbled. "I thought it would be like any other horror movie. I've seen every Saw movie and, dude, nothing has ever scared me like that movie."

  "The scene when her head spins around do it for you?"

  "No, actually, it's the fact that the devil gets the priest in the end."

  Sam frowned. "Huh?"

  "Yeah, the devil wins. He gets the priest." Hale wiped his hand off on his uniform. "The good guy loses."

  Sam watched as another star valiantly fought for its place in the night sky. "Yeah, but the good guy sacrificed himself so the little girl could live."

  "Pretty shitty way for the girl to live. Why couldn't the devil just be defeated without the good guy having to give up his soul to save the little girl?"

  Sam shrugged, not liking the direction this conversation was taking. They'd never talked about what happened that day. Sam still saw her face in his nightmares. Her face, judging him for making the call he'd made. "I don't know, man. Maybe you need to ask the chaplain that." He scrubbed his hand over his jaw. He needed to shave. "It's just a movie."

  "Yeah. Maybe I will."

  Silence settled over them in the darkness. The Exorcist was bullshit, Sam thought. It made for good storytelling, that was all. Even if the priest had killed himself to save the little girl, nothing kept that demon from going back after her.

  The priest's sacrifice was futile. Just like half the decisions made in this damn war.

  But he couldn't tell Hale that. Not right now, when he was a snail inching along the razor's edge.

  "A little kid lived because of a good man's sacrifice," Sam said after a while.

  Hale's answer penetrated the fear that had been Sam's constant companion since that day two months earlier. "That doesn't mean the good man's soul was worth it."

  "No," Sam said, his voice thick. "No, it doesn't."

  * * *

  Night in the middle of the city, far from any support and without communications, was a chilling place to be. This sector of the city had no power, so the silence was heavy and absolute. It hung on, accenting every sound. Strange how the world went so eerily quiet with no electricity humming in the background.

  The silence was screwing with him. Sam gave up trying to catch a ten-minute nap. He wasn't a fan of lying to himself, but he'd fed himself a complete line of bullshit by believing he was going to get any sleep.

  Instead, as the night crept on, he made his rounds, pulling guys off guard who looked like they were half dead on their feet so they could catch a fifteen-minute nap or so. Just a quick few minutes to close their eyes, then he’d get them back in the fight.

  He stepped into the command post, where he tried not to notice the major toying with the pieces of his silver bullet coffee pot. Sam paused when the radio crackled, but nothing was there. Just unreadable static across the ’net. No comms crossing the distance between their location and the main base.

  Hope died in his chest.

  He kept going, heading down to the bottom floor. He paused at the entrance to one of the rooms. Peering in, he saw Merrick talking with Hale, his hand on Hale's shoulder.

  Sam was about to go on, about to ignore the fact that his team leader looked like he was confessing his sins, when Merrick looked right at him. Sam blinked and could have sworn that Merrick's eyes gleamed in the darkness.

  He stepped into the room. "Everything okay in here?"

  Hale turned, his cheeks flushing. "Yeah. I was just telling Sarn't Merrick that one of his guys got caught sleeping on guard duty."

  Sam recognized the lie as soon as Hale spoke, but he wasn't about to call him out in front of Merrick. The lie, though—the lie nagged at the back of his mind. Still, he let it go. He had more important things to worry about than what Merrick was talking to Hale about.

  Hale would be okay. If Sam said so often enough, it would be true.

  Merrick clapped him on the shoulder as he slipped past, out into the stairwell and into the darkness.

  Sam said nothing, waiting for Hale to come clean.

  Hale looked away, avoiding Sam's gaze. "I wasn't lying, Sarn't Brown," Hale said.

  "But you weren't telling the whole truth, either."

  Hale met his eyes. Sam had never seen more naked fear in his soldier's eyes. "I won't let you down, Sarn't Brown. Whatever it takes. I'm going to make sure we get home."

  Sam crossed the small space, his weapon bouncing against his chest from the three-point sling. He gripped Hale's shoulder and spoke very quietly, so that if Merrick was still in the hall, lurking in the darkness and shadows, he wouldn't hear Sam's next words.

  "I don't know what's on your mind, but we're going to get through this."

  Hale smiled thinly. "I know we will."

  The certainty in Hale's voice sent a chill down Sam's spine. "Hale…"

  "I'm fine, Sarn't Brown." His gaze didn't waver. "Really. I'm going to go check on Jinx."

  He brushed past Sam without another word, leaving Sam with the dis
quieting realization that Hale was not doing okay, and that there wasn’t dick he could do about it until they got back to the base.

  Frustration clawed at him as he moved through the building, checking on the guard positions. He found Lewis flicking a wad of dip into the dirt, watching the alley near the orphanage.

  "Hale is not okay," Sam said.

  "No shit, Sherlock. What clued you in?"

  "I'm not really in the mood for fucking jokes," Sam said in a low voice. "Get ready to pack out of here ASAP. I'm going to find Merrick. We've waited long enough."

  "No argument there," Lewis muttered. He stopped Sam with a palm on his chest. Sam looked down at the hand from the junior man, then up into his eyes. "Hale's going to be okay, right?"

  Sam took a deep breath before he answered. The evening call to prayer echoed over the city's rooftops, haunting and beautiful. Sam hated it. Hated the war, hated this place. Hated all of it in that one moment.

  Lewis dropped his palm.

  Sam gripped the other man's shoulder. "I'll move heaven and earth to make sure of it.”

  15

  "There's still no communication from the main base," Sam said as Merrick hunkered down next to him. The major was slumped in a corner, his chin resting on his chest. A fleck of spittle dribbled from his open mouth as he snored softly. "We've waited long enough."

  Sam pulled the antenna cable off, turning the connector to look at the pins.

  Merrick sat, scuffing his boot against the dust-covered floor, leaving one leg bent so he could prop his elbow on it. "I've done all of that."

  Sam flicked his gaze toward Merrick, then back to the cable in his hand. "I'm not saying you didn't," Sam said as he blew into the connector on the hand mic, then wet the inside with his pinky before attempting to reconnect it. "Doesn't hurt to double-check everything." He keyed the mic. "Hellhound Main, Hellhound Main, this is Reaper Two Six, over."

  Nothing but static came back over the net. Not even a dead space where the distant end might have tried to key the mic.

  It was as if a bubble enveloped them. No communications. No overflights. Just a pitch-black night, layered in dust and sand and the sound of spent ammunition casings skittering along the concrete floor. It was like the world around them had come to a grinding halt, and they were the only ones left.

  It was a deeply unsettling thought. Sam slammed the mic down and stood, pacing to the window to peer out into the darkened street. He didn't want to be here anymore. Not this building, not this mission, not this fucking country. He was trapped, the walls squeezing in on him as he kept racing around the hamster wheel. Running his ass off and going nowhere fast.

  "I've been stranded before," Merrick said, fiddling with the knob on the radio.

  Sam rocked back on his heels, tapping his thumb against the butt of his weapon. "I don't actually care. When are we leaving?"

  Merrick ignored his comment but said nothing else. The silence stretched between them, cold and uncomfortable.

  Finally, Merrick spoke. "I'd been arguing with the boss about this little goody two-shoes lieutenant. My boss didn't appreciate my point of view."

  "What was the argument?" Sam still didn't care. Not in the least. But maybe if he humored Merrick, he'd get around to answering the frigging question about when they were going to leave. He fought the urge to kick the major's boot to wake him up.

  "That the lieutenant wasn't as good as he thought he was." Merrick spit into the dust. "Then I got left out in sector, and lo and behold who comes to rescue me? The kiss-ass lieutenant. Who the boss then rewarded with even greater responsibility."

  "So why does it sound like you're not happy about being picked up when you were alone in the enemy territory?" Sam watched the thin man out of the corner of his eye.

  Merrick shifted his weight onto his heels as he traced the antenna to the back of the radio. "I think I'd rather have died than be indebted to that sycophantic little fuck," Merrick said. "And the worst part is that he's so goddamned nice."

  "These are not bad things," Sam said mildly.

  "In our line of work? Yes they are." Merrick looked up at him, his eyes razor sharp. "There is no room for nice in what we do. Nice gets you killed. Nice gets your men killed."

  Sam flinched and turned away, he hoped before Merrick saw his reaction. Nice did get good men killed. Sam knew that firsthand. He'd have to live with that guilt for the rest of his life. He would get no absolution for his sins. Not in this life, not even if he lived to be one hundred.

  "Made hard choices during this war, huh, Brown?" Merrick asked.

  "Haven't we all?" He didn't want to have this conversation. Not here. Not now. Not when he needed to get back to the base to get Hale checked out and there wasn't jack shit he could do to speed up the process. "It's full dark now. When are we leaving?"

  "What's the worst thing you've seen during the war?" Merrick asked, ignoring Sam's question a second time.

  He could answer. Or he could insist on the answer to his own question first. Somehow, he didn't think he was going to get that.

  Sam leaned his back against the low wall and tipped his head back to look out over the city. Smoke shadows blotted out the night sky.

  The memory came unbidden and unwelcome on the pixie dust swirling in the sparse lights.

  "There was this little girl once. She was probably about five. Maybe older, but she was so little. She was walking through raw sewage barefoot, picking through the trash. I think she was looking for something to eat." If he closed his eyes, he'd see her clearly again. Brown eyes too big for her face. Hair dark and stringy around cheeks that should have been chubby and bent with laughter. Clothes tattered and torn, her shirt barely hanging onto one shoulder.

  The problem was, he wanted to forget her. He didn't want to think of these people as people. He wanted to be able to shoot the engine block of a car or blow up a building without feeling guilty. Without feeling like the war was going to permanently stain his hands and blacken his soul.

  He wanted to be able to go home to Faith in a few months and hold their son or their daughter and not wonder what the war had done to him. Would he be able to go home and be the same again? Or would he always wonder whether the war had permanently twisted something up inside him, because of one bad decision with a kid no one had cared enough about to keep out of the middle of a firefight?

  That little girl haunted him. She kept him up at night, making him think about things he wanted to forget, making him feel guilty for making the wrong choice. Why were there so many fucking children in the middle of a war zone?

  "You don't like thinking about her." It was not a question.

  "Not really. I mean, what if that had been my kid wandering around in the shit and the piss?" Hungry and lost. Jesus, his heart ached just thinking about what this war had done to her. "I'd do anything to keep my kid from having to live like that."

  The words left a fleeting hypocrisy in his heart. He'd protect his own child, but a child alone in a foreign country? No, he couldn’t have done anything to protect her.

  He'd turned his back on her and tried to forget he’d ever seen her. He was the worst kind of coward.

  He rubbed his chest and flicked his night vision goggles down to check the street, penetrating the darkness with a light green haze.

  At the end of the alley, a flicker of movement caught his eye. He stilled, watching the shadows twist and writhe along the wall.

  The dog plodded back into the street. Her head was low, her movements quick and stealthy. Her nose was to the ground, her tail down. Shallow grooves hung between her ribs. Her hip bones protruded grotesquely from her body.

  It couldn't be the dog from the base. This far away? She couldn’t possibly have had the energy to make it this far. And yet, as she skulked into the alley, Sam knew. It was the same dog. She had the same torn ear as the dog from the base.

  It couldn't be a coincidence. Sam swallowed and wished the green tinge had never illuminated the pathetic mutt. "Fuck."
She looked miserable. How long had that stupid breakfast bar prolonged her misery?

  He should shoot her. It would be a kindness, rather than to let her continue to scavenge and starve.

  Merrick moved to the other window, his own night vision goggles down to illuminate the night. He'd barely glanced down the street when he leaned back, lifting the goggles away from his eyes. "I see you've met Anu."

  Sam couldn't have been more surprised if Merrick had said he'd helped all of her puppies find good homes. Merrick did not strike him as the kind-to-animals type. "You've named her?"

  Merrick moved away from the window, dropping his NVGs. "She named herself."

  “What the hell does that even mean?” Sam snapped. He couldn't look away from the bedraggled dog. Didn’t notice that Merrick once again ignored his question.

  The dog shuffled closer. Sam's breath caught in his chest as he watched her. Anticipation clutched at his throat as she scratched at a pile of debris. Victory leapt inside him as she procured something edible. She ate hungrily, the tip of her tail wagging ever so slightly at the sparse meal.

  And then the hunt was on again.

  As she slunk down the alley, Sam held his breath. The closer she came, the harder it was for him to fill his lungs. Panic slithered in and took hold. Air. He needed air. He forced himself to slow his breathing. To accept what little oxygen his lungs could hold.

  The skinny dog lifted her head. In the pale green light of the night vision goggles, her dark eyes met his.

  * * *

  Sam dropped his head back against the concrete. His helmet tinked off the edge of the broken window frame, jarring his brain. Black stars floated in front of his vision.

  He held his silence even as the panic fled and his lungs filled.

  What the hell just happened?

  He sat for a long moment, just breathing, Merrick's words echoing in the dull emptiness of his brain. She named herself.

  He was losing his fucking mind.

  He closed his eyes and again saw the pale dog, her ribs bathed in green shadows as she slunk down the trash-strewn streets.