The Long Night

by Jessica Scott

  "Jinx, get a 240 on this street!" Sam shouted.

  "Busy right now, Sarn't Brown." The 240 was rocking down the second avenue of approach. No second gun was answering Jinx's bursts—because the second gunner would have been with Lewis.

  Sam went to find the missing weapons system. The skinny Bible Kid was curled up beneath the truck, his hands cupped over his ears, tears streaming down his face. His weapon lay in the dirt, unused. Useless.

  Sam dragged the kid to his position a few feet away. Concrete exploded over Sam's head as the enemy tried to gain ground in the alley.

  "Get on the fucking weapon and kill anything that fucking moves," Sam said.

  The kid opened his mouth and Sam didn't think. He slapped him on the back of the head and pointed down the alley. "Start shooting. Time fucking now."

  It was goddamned chaos. Merrick was nowhere to be seen. The .50-cal was dismounted on the ground and essentially unusable. They were trapped.

  And the enemy kept coming, stepping over the bodies that piled up in front of them. They kept coming.

  Sam grabbed a grenade and lobbed it over the defensive position where Hale was busy trying to jerry-rig a mount for the .50-cal. "Frag out!"

  Everyone ducked as the grenade went off. Rounds flew again, as if the enemy hadn't even blinked.

  Inside the truck, the radio chattered constantly. It took Sam a minute to realize what he was hearing.

  "Reaper Two Six, this is Thrasher Seven. Looks like you guys could use a hand down there."

  "Thrasher Seven, your timing is fucking perfect." Air support. Sam had never been so fucking happy for air support in his entire life. "We'll mark our position with red illum," Sam said into the hand mic. "Weapons free to the north of our position."

  "Roger that, Reaper Two Six."

  The sound of the helo opening up on the enemy was the sweetest sound.

  * * *

  There was relative silence after the gun run was complete. As though the world had stopped, and all the violence and death had stopped with it.

  The patrol that had been coming to get them pulled up to the end of the alley.

  Captain Lehr strode down through the bodies and the death toward Sam, whose boots were suddenly welded to the ground.

  Lehr grabbed Sam by the back of the neck. "Fuck, dude, you okay?"

  Sam said nothing. No, he was not okay. His guts twisted and threatened to release. "We need to get the medics down here," he said when he could finally talk.

  Lewis was already dead. Hale was bleeding from a cut somewhere on his face. Jinx's hand was bloody.

  And the Bible Kid?

  Not a scratch or spot on him.

  Sam fought the urge to kick him where he sat next to the tire of the Humvee. It would have been like kicking a puppy who'd just gotten whooped for shitting on the floor. As the rage peeled back in layers, Sam realized he didn't want to be the kind of man who kicked puppies.

  The medics trotted down the alley. Overhead the helos guarded their position, keeping any more enemy from approaching.

  Sam started toward the stairs.

  Captain Lehr stopped him. "Let them do it, Sam," he said quietly.

  "Sir —"

  "Don't. Trust me, the nightmares aren't worth it."

  They finished packing up the gear. Sam tossed the antenna from the roof and the radio—now splattered with Lewis' blood—into the back of the truck.

  The medics came down the stairs with Lewis between them on a stretcher. He was covered with a poncho. Sam looked at his commander.

  "They're out of body bags at the base," Lehr said quietly.

  "It was that bad?"

  Lehr nodded. "I'm sorry we couldn't get to you until now, Sam." He rubbed his hand over his mouth. "So fucking sorry."

  Sam said nothing, unable to speak beyond the lump in his throat. As the adrenaline faded, the anger rose up, dancing and twisting with a raw sadness that sliced at his guts.

  He climbed into the truck. Jinx guided it down the alley, over the bodies they’d shoved to one side.

  Sam didn't care about the enemy dead. He wanted to kill them all over again. Hate clawed at him.

  And on the ride back to the base, Sam grieved.

  17

  Sam supposed he should be used to what stress could do to people. But two hours after they finally made it back to base, he walked into the TOC and found Captain Lehr and Captain Tarsis screaming at each other. The skinny kid stood between the two captains, holding a hand mic and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else than right there, on radio detail.

  Sam looked away from him. He felt the shame of not knowing that kid's name but now, with Lewis' death burning in his heart, he had no fucks to give. Instead, he folded his arms across his chest and waited for the two captains to either come to blows or back off into separate corners.

  "I don't give a flying fuck, Ross. Your fucking guy was responsible for making sure they made the rally point."

  Tarsis was a mean little bastard, apparently, because he shoved Lehr back a step. "And your fucking people are the ones who blew a goddamned truck, remember? Don't you stand there and fucking blame my goddamned squad who knows that fucking sector better than your goddamned fucking cowboys." Spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted.

  Lehr had taken a single step in his direction, fist half-cocked to strike, when Sam interrupted their fight.

  "If you ladies are about done, I need to work on one of the computers," Sam said quietly. He wondered where Tick and Merrick were, and why anyone was allowing these two captains to fight in the TOC in the first place.

  Lehr took a step back, his chest moving violently as his breath sliced in and out of his lungs. He said nothing, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward his office and then stalking out of the TOC.

  The skinny kid slithered out of Lehr's way, then slowly set the hand mic down. He looked like he'd rather melt into the shadows than sit in the TOC in the dark and listen to the radio chatter — chatter that was clear as the night sky now that they were back on the base.

  "I'm sorry about your boys, Sarn't Brown," Tarsis said roughly.

  Sam's throat thickened. "Thanks, sir," he said after a moment. "Sir?" He flexed his hand, trying to shake off an unfamiliar tightness in his tendons. "Is Merrick around? I need to catch him before you guys head out and make sure I've got the paperwork right."

  Tarsis' face darkened to a deep shade of puce. His jaw tightened. "Fuck you, Brown. I offer sympathy and you ask me about fucking paperwork?"

  "Sir?"

  "Merrick's dead, you fucking asshole. You're just like your goddamned commander. Fuck you, you little prick."

  Sam looked at the blank space where the angry captain had just been, his words echoing on the back of Sam's skull. Dead? When the fuck had Merrick died?

  Sam rubbed his hands over his face and closed his eyes, trying to think back to the firefight. The last thing he remembered was taking Merrick's hand after the building had gotten blown up.

  That had been real, right? His fucking hand hurt as if it had been in a death grip. Why couldn't he remember?

  "You okay, Sarn't?"

  Sam glanced toward the door and fought to keep his expression blank. The Bible Kid stood in the doorway, framed by the two-by-fours that made up the door in the first place.

  "Fine, why?" He frowned. "Why are you on radio guard instead of racked out?"

  The kid lifted one shoulder. "I volunteered. Figured I was too keyed up to sleep anyway." He folded his hands behind his back. "I'm sorry about your team leader," he said after a moment.

  Sam ground his teeth. "Yeah. We all are."

  "I know you're not big on faith and all, but Ecclesiastes 3:1 says 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven’."

  Sam's breath came short and quick, blocked by a spike of inchoate rage. "Don't. Don't fucking quote me scripture right now and tell me that there's a reason for my guy to be cold in the fucking morgue right now."
/>   The kid's eyes went wide. "Sarn't, I just meant—"

  "Not one more fucking word," Sam snapped.

  "Sarn't."

  Sam's fist exploded on the desk. Paper shot out from the pressure of the blow. "Shut. The Fuck. Up!" he screamed. "I don't want to fucking hear about a purpose. I don't believe in your fucking God. I want my fucking soldiers back!"

  The kid pressed his mouth into a tight line and backed slowly out of the office.

  The echo of Sam's scream rang against his skull as he started filling out the paperwork for a soldier killed in action.

  * * *

  Sam's hand burned. He sat in the middle of the trailers in the life support area with his guys, smoking a cigar and trying to ignore the fire that seemed to pulse beneath his skin.

  They sat together, all the remaining men of Sam's team. They sat together beneath the metal awning between the trailers that protected them from the blistering heat and punishing sun, and swapped stories about the dead. Laughing about the time Hale had t-bagged Lewis and posted the picture on Facebook. About the time that Lewis had damn near died trying to eat an MRE cracker in less than two minutes. Sam laughed because he couldn't show his boys the grief that ripped at his guts. He laughed for Lewis. For the crazy bastards on Merrick's team whom he hadn't really known, but now mourned as some of their own.

  He cradled the cigar and listened to the guys reminisce about Lewis. About the time he’d pranced around the middle of the life support area wearing a thong made out of Smarties. Or the time they’d gone and Party-Boyed the Iraqis and damn near got shot in the process. Apparently the Iraqis didn't think a bunch of dudes running through their trailers wearing thongs and grinding on them behind their backs was nearly as funny as the Americans did.

  Sam looked around the small cluster of his squad, flexing his hand. A couple of the guys had wandered down to the call center to try and get a line back home. There were long waits. It wasn't every day that a ten thousand-pound bomb went and blew a hole in the base defenses. People would be worried back home, probably because some asshole had already posted about the attack on Facebook.

  He wanted to call Faith, but figured he'd wait until the lines were a little less than six hours long. Besides, he wasn't sure what to say to her. He had no words that would adequately explain the sadness cutting at his heart.

  He looked around the small group, ignoring the water bottle passed around. Sam was willing to bet it didn’t have water in it. He didn't see Hale. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen him since they'd rolled back on base and cleared their weapons at the clearing barrel.

  He stood and hiked his pants up higher on his hips. He remembered he needed a new belt, but he didn't feel like walking two miles to the shoppette to get one. He could jerry-rig his pants for now with 550 cord. He'd go tomorrow, maybe.

  He walked down the corridor between the trailers, his flip-flops scuffing on the dusty wooden walkway, and pounded on Hale's door.

  Silence. He leaned closer to the door and listened for the sound of a bedspring or a chair creaking.

  Nothing.

  He pounded again, then turned the handle.

  The door slid open. It was dark inside Hale's room. Lewis' bed was empty; his blankets and equipment already inventoried and packed out to be sent home to Lewis' mom and dad. Sam hoped they wouldn't fight over Lewis' stuff. It wasn't much, and Sam knew how much Lewis hated it when his parents fought. They'd been divorced for twenty years, but they still fought like they were married. He wondered who’d tell Lewis’ ex-wife.

  He stepped into the trailer and flicked on the light.

  Hale was lying in bed, his face cradled on one bent arm. His mouth was slack, his breath slow and even.

  He hadn't even taken his boots off. Sam double-checked Hale's weapon and found it had been cleared.

  He wanted to wake up his team leader but figured if he was asleep it was probably for the best. The rest of the guys were going to get shit-faced tonight. Sam was going to make sure every one of them found their way back to their own beds and keep trouble, in the form of the company commander or any other officer, away. The boys needed to process their grief, especially before they went back out in sector.

  Sam pulled a blanket over Hale and clicked off the lights as he left.

  Hale would sleep it off. So would the boys.

  And Sam? Sam would sit up tonight and smoke a cigar, hoping the lines would clear up so he could call Faith.

  He collapsed into the ragged camping chair outside his trailer while the boys drank and Sam smoked. He leaned his head against the wall and tried to remember why he was here and what the good fight really was.

  And his hand? It continued to burn.

  18

  It was dark but the stars and the moon were blurred by dust. Two days after returning to base, alone in the darkness, he felt empty. Wrung out.

  Hollow.

  Pieces of him were missing, settled inside a fucking coffin across the goddamned base inside mortuary affairs. Lewis' death had crushed a vital piece of Sam's heart.

  But Merrick's death?

  It haunted Sam.

  The end of the firefight was a goddamned blur. When the hell had Merrick gotten hit?

  The news of Merrick's demise did something to Sam's insides. For a man Sam hadn’t particularly liked, he found the news of his death...unsettling.

  He headed across the base, unable to sleep, unable to sit up all hours of the night and listen to the remnants of the mourning that had gotten too melancholy. He'd left the guys and grabbed his gear, heading across the base, through the midnight silence and swirling dust, to the call center.

  Silence was relative. Generators rumbled wherever he walked through the barriers. The test fire pit popped off every so often as the next patrol rolled outside the wire, hunting the high-value targets who'd planned and executed the attack on the base. Seventeen soldiers were dead and dozens wounded. The background noise ground on, but the noise of soldiers? That silence was eerie.

  Sam trudged through the darkness, listening to the sounds behind him. Waiting for a scrape of claws against gravel or the sound of a snuffling snout against the dust.

  He was losing his shit in the dark and the dust. He needed a good night's sleep. That would fix everything. But every time he’d tried to close his eyes since they’d gotten back, his thoughts started racing. Instead of sleeping, they spun and spun and spun.

  He rounded the last corner where the damn dog had been last time. He stutter-stepped, flicking on his flashlight and scanning the area before he proceeded.

  He fully expected to see the dog behind him.

  But he was alone.

  At least, he thought he was.

  The last time he'd seen her, she'd been out in the town, snuffling along the wall, miles away from the relative sanctuary of the base. He had no idea how she'd gotten that far from the base in the first place. There was no way she could already be back, but enough strangeness had happened that Sam wasn't taking chances.

  He moved only when he was damn sure the bunker didn't have a dog hiding in the shadows.

  He walked past, refusing to admit that he might have skittered past the opening, just in case…well, just in case. The shadows didn't normally freak him out, but tonight, on the walk to the call center, he didn't have his night vision goggles. The darkness was absolute and terrifying.

  He walked on in silence, the tiny hairs on the back of his neck shivering in the evening wind as he left the silence of the concrete pathways and reentered civilization. Or at least what passed as civilization on the base. He walked past a group of soldiers smoking near the entrance of the morale tent. Someone was calling bullshit on the last round of spades.

  Sam smiled sadly. Lewis and Hale always argued about spades. He wondered if he should ask Hale to play a game. Once Hale woke up. He needed to stop back by Hale's trailer and check on him before he crashed tonight.

  Assuming he slept. Sam didn't count on it. He was starting to think he wou
ld never sleep right again. He rubbed his face as he walked past the network ops cell. Maybe he'd take that last sleeping pill he had been saving for the flight home. Maybe he'd get that good night's sleep tonight and hope he could bum another pill off the doc before the flight home in a few months. He didn't want to start taking them on a regular basis. He wasn't going to become another fucking statistic, some pussy-ass soldier who couldn't cut it.

  But maybe just this once. Just to reset. He could do that, right?

  He rounded the last barrier and approached the call center. Relief prickled over his skin that the line was only two soldiers deep.

  He drummed his fingers on the butt of his weapon, shaking his hand and hoping the burning sensation would stop. He hoped Faith would answer the phone. Goddamn, he needed to hear her voice. To be reminded of some good in the world. That he had a reason for fighting the good fight, which right now felt so fucking pointless.

  He sucked in a deep breath and shoved the grief that threatened to escape its confines back down into the box where it needed to stay.

  He wasn't going to break. Not here. Not now. Not ever. He had a job to do. He needed to stay strong, especially if Hale was breaking down on him.

  He waited in line, rubbing his hand against his thigh, hoping to wipe the sensation from his skin. Nothing he did made the burning stop.

  His turn came before he lost his mind to the insanity of standing still. He moved to the phone. It was slick and warm from the other soldier's hand, but Sam didn't care. It was a chance to hear Faith's voice. Please let her answer.

  He punched in the numbers, held the receiver to his ear and waited.

  The trill of the ring purred against his ear. The silence between the rings stretched until forever.

  Then there was a click.

  “This is Faith. Leave me your name and number and I'll call you back.”