by Alex Kava
At first Creed thought the sound might have been an echo from the Bobcat’s bucket, metal scraping the metal of the vehicle. But even as he glanced back he knew it had come from above.
“Bolo, go!” He yelled at the top of his lungs, but the dog hesitated, sensing danger. His nose was still working. Instinct overrode the unfamiliar command.
Precious seconds were lost as Creed’s feet slid. He stopped himself, not wanting his movement to contribute to destabilizing the surroundings. At least not until his dog was out of there. It didn’t matter. Dirt began to rain down. He yanked the rope toy out of his pocket. He’d have to depend on Bolo’s other instinct.
Toy crazy! Thank God!
Now he had the dog’s attention. Creed tossed the twisted rope, the heavy knots at both ends sending it flying. He flung it as hard and as far as he could, a lateral throw, making the dog run diagonally and not in front of where the slide would likely go.
Even that simple toss threatened to upend him. Creed caught his balance and tried to make his feet gain traction as he heard the rumble grow. He felt the vibration. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the slab behind him start to fracture. Chunks fell away, crumbling all around him. A full-out sprint was impossible. Now that he wanted to move—needed to move—his boots became skates, sliding one second, the next jamming toes against rocks and almost sending him sprawling.
He felt pressure against his back. Debris smacked his helmet. There was nothing to grab on to. The impact knocked him off his feet and onto his back. Creed was used to swimming in the Gulf. An excellent swimmer, he knew to take in air with the breaking of the waves and he knew when to hold his breath. But there was no break. A gush of rapids swept him under. Only this wasn’t water. The thick sludge overtook him, wrapped around him, sending him careening so fast it was an effort to control his arms and legs.
He ducked his head and pulled his body into a tight ball. Chin to his chest. Knees curled up. Arms crisscrossed with hands fisted, holding on to the front of his jacket. Nose buried in the crook of his arm.
Rolling, tumbling, speeding too fast. The pull of gravity turned him into just another piece of debris, battering him against the rest. Splintered branches poked him in the sides. Rocks slammed into his helmet. Sharp objects shredded his clothes and scraped his skin.
The force yanked at him, attempting to peel his limbs away even as it continued to send him spiraling downhill. Yet he stayed curled and tucked as best he could, holding on. He no longer knew which way was up. There was no sky, only a heavy, thick blur of speckled gray that swallowed all light. He waited for the slide to slow down. Waited for it to stop. Waited to hit the bottom.
Then suddenly it stopped. He stopped.
11.
There was no sound. The world had come to a screeching halt and so had he. Everything quieted, unplugged and muffled. Everything except for the throbbing of his heartbeat.
Creed opened his eyes to blackness with patches of gray. He strained to loosen his fingers and dig away grime from his face, from his eyes. He blinked. Tried to focus. Still saw only blackness with patches of gray. Maybe like walking into an unlit room, he needed to wait for his eyes to adjust. He told himself to be patient.
The smell of musty earth already filled his lungs. A sharp stabbing pain kept his breaths shallow and careful when he wanted to gulp air. What little air there was was dense and thick with moisture, making it difficult to breathe. He could taste wet dirt, gravel, and grit on his tongue and between his teeth and cheek. He wanted to spit but stopped himself. Instead, he dug his finger into his mouth, sweeping then pinching and pulling out what didn’t belong. With effort he tried to free his arm. He wrenched it and twisted his wrist to loosen the stranglehold around him.
His legs were pinned. His arms were trapped against his chest. He tried to dig in his elbows and push himself up. His backpack remained in place and he heard crunching. All he was doing was smashing the contents of his backpack against the mud, squeezing out what little air existed around him. Weight pressed against him in all directions.
Was the mud already hardening? How many minutes? How many seconds before the shell surrounding him became as hard as concrete?
His eyes should have had enough time to adjust, yet they still showed him nothing more than the dark, gray space inches in front of him. He couldn’t let himself panic. There had to be a way to dig out.
He drew measured breaths. Anxiety made you breathe more rapidly and he needed to stay calm. He could do this, but only if he remained calm. The palms of his hands were close to his face. He could see the shadows of his fingers when he wiggled them. Again, he swiped dirt and sludge away from his face. In the space in front of him, he clawed to create an air pocket. Crumbles fell away.
He stopped.
He poked again and watched more pieces fall. They were falling away from him. He needed to be certain. Clawed some more, and again the dirt didn’t hit him in the face.
Gravity never lied.
The realization made his heartbeat start to gallop. Panic gnawed its way into his gut. Not only was he buried alive, he was lying facedown. Any attempt to dig his way out just went from difficult to impossible.
12.
Creed slammed the back of his helmet against the weight that threatened to crush him. Small pieces flaked down on his neck. He had rocked mere inches, and each time the space he smashed open quickly filled with debris from above. He reared up and arched his back, sickened by how solid the mass on top of him had already begun to feel. He was encased in a coffin of mud and it was hardening like cement by the second.
He had managed to work his hands free. Protected under his body, this space didn’t fill in immediately. But he wasn’t creating more air for himself, only a few more inches of movement.
Seconds slipped away. He had no idea how much time had passed. But he was acutely aware of how little air he had. Already he could feel the difference, hot and suffocating like being under a damp wool blanket. And because there was no place for his exhalations to escape, he knew he was contaminating what air was left, saturating it with carbon dioxide. The mixture would eventually start to impair his mental capacity.
Just the thought sent his fingers digging, clawing, searching for an air pocket. Surely there must be more air trapped between the pieces of debris, caught somewhere in the folds. He tried twisting his body again. Bucked against the backpack. Smashed his helmet from side to side.
Suddenly he stopped.
There was crunching above him. And panting. He could hear a dog panting.
Bolo! Had he gotten away in time?
Creed strained to listen. He cocked his head, and that’s when he felt the drips on his hand. The panting wasn’t a dog’s. The panting was his own.
Drips of saliva from his mouth.
How could that be when his throat felt raw and cotton-dry? Swallowing was an effort. He was breathing hard now, sucking in air, and still he was breathless. He tried to calm the panting. He was breathing too fast, too deep. He’d use up his meager supply in no time.
He felt the surge of panic. He had stomped it down several times. Soon it would be something he could not control.
Creed lay flat, palms against the dirt ledge he had created beneath himself. Then he pushed until his wrists and elbows screamed for him to stop. He pushed until his back ached, until the muscles in his neck felt like they would explode, until the pain in his chest sliced too deep. He fought to breathe, clawing away swatches of debris, only to hear and see the space refill. All thought and reason had given in to basic instinct.
When he finally stopped it wasn’t because his muscles failed him. It was the hum that started to fill his ears, relentless but almost soothing like a lullaby.
He felt light-headed, and suddenly exhaustion dissolved into an unusual calm. He felt himself slipping into water, letting go of his body. Giving in and allowing the water to carry
him.
He closed his eyes, and soon he was floating.
13.
Washington, D.C.
Ellie sat quietly at the corner of the long conference table. She had listened to Senator John Quincy’s long explanation about the documents provided by the DoD. All the momentum she had gathered during her brisk walk down the halls to come to this meeting had evaporated as soon as she came in the door. Senator Quincy derailed her quite easily by inviting her, in front of the rest of the committee, to come sit at the corner of his end of the table. It so disarmed her that she had barely heard him say how “pretty” she looked today.
This congressional hearing was not the first one on this particular subject. Senator Quincy reminded them of that. Congress had taken a look at these two classified government projects from the 1960s and 1970s. Project 112 and Project SHAD were a series of tests conducted by the Department of Defense. The purpose, which Senator Quincy read from a document, “was to identify U.S. warships’ and U.S. troops’ vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical or biological warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability.”
“Basically,” Quincy continued, “the DoD claimed they were trying to find out how chemical and biological agents behaved in different environments. How they affected our military personnel and how long it would take to respond effectively. They sprayed ships and dispersed aerosols in controlled areas that were supposed to simulate enemy attacks. Not until 2002 did the DoD admit that actual biological and chemical agents were used in these simulated attacks. Nasty stuff like VX nerve gas, Sarin nerve gas, and E. coli were used on our soldiers and sailors without their knowledge or their consent.”
Yes, Ellie thought, it sounded like a travesty, but she was raised in a colonel’s household and constantly heard her father talk about the sacrifices of the few to protect the greater good of a whole society. Military personnel didn’t necessarily sign up to be exposed to IEDs or machete-rampaging Taliban, but it happened as part of war. These soldiers and sailors were part of a project to protect the free world against an enemy who would use such weapons.
In her mind, Ellie had already decided that Project 112 and Project SHAD were not the evil and sinister works of her government, like Senator Quincy hoped to prove. But at the same time, she did believe the government owed these veterans some kind of compensation if they had become ill from their exposure. She hated that the DoD would rather bury them in worthless blacked-out, photocopied documents from half a century ago than provide the last of these men the health benefits they deserved. But in order to do that, men like her father and Colonel Hess—men who were hailed as heroes—would need to admit that they had done something wrong.
Instead of getting caught up in that nonsense, since Ellie knew she had no control over the outcome, she committed herself to what she could control. She kept glancing at the door, waiting and hoping that Carter had been successful in ordering a subpoena for Colonel Hess. After all, she was not a novice at using her political credentials. That was one thing she’d learned very quickly in this city. You embraced and used your power and authority or you’d be crushed by those who weren’t afraid to.
Now she needed Carter to come in and tell her it was a done deal before Quincy brought up the subject of Hess not being able to appear before the committee on the opening day of the hearing.
Quincy, however, droned on about how important this hearing was, telling them that the failure of those congressional attempts in the past made their task more urgent. A bill in 2008 would have provided those veterans who were a part of Project 112 and Project SHAD with health benefits. That bill had failed. Some of those veterans hadn’t given up, even though their congressmen had. They were hoping to push for another bill that would finally acknowledge them.
Ellie knew too well that the 2008 bill failure probably had very little to do with its merits, though she hadn’t been in the Senate at that time. In fact, when she first took office she dove in with plenty of good intentions, sponsoring and crusading for worthy causes only to watch the results of her efforts become political fodder, nothing more than bargaining chips. It mattered more what a bill was attached to than what it contained.
To make anything happen, she’d learned, she needed to play the game, keeping score with favors—“I’ll vote for this if you vote for that.” Somewhere along the way she’d lost her passion for the causes she’d believed in so dearly. She couldn’t remember when it became more about her own survival than her purpose for being there in the first place. Even now she still watched the door, waiting for her assistant.
Come on, Carter, she found herself chanting in her head. She had seen glimpses of what this man-child was capable of doing. If she was going to create a monster, could it at least be a monster that benefited her? So intent was her concentration that when the stooped elderly man wearing his dress blues shuffled into the room she didn’t recognize him. He was accompanied by a younger man, a very handsome man, also in dress blues.
Senator Quincy stopped his rambling, shoved his thick body away from the table, and stood to greet the men. “Colonel Hess, Colonel Platt, thank you both for joining us.”
Ellie felt the heat rush to her face. The man who had entered the room looked nothing like the brilliant biologist she knew. Granted, it had been years, perhaps a decade, since she had last seen him in person.
She stood as Quincy guided the two colonels to the empty chairs at the other corner of the table, just opposite Ellie. The old doctor’s eyes lit up when he saw her, and she was pleased with the recognition. After all, she was the one who had called him and asked him to be one of the experts to testify. She wanted the others to realize that. Maybe they would see that she had some connections of her own. She wasn’t just the junior senator from Florida—the one who was fighting for her life to remain the junior senator from Florida.
He took her hand first, ignoring several others who had offered theirs. His grip was firm, even if he added his second hand over the top of hers in that handshake men seemed to think was necessary when addressing a woman. Still, she was beaming.
And then he said to her, “Look at you. Your father would be so proud, little Ellie Delanor.”
14.
Haywood County, North Carolina
It was too damned hot to breathe.
A hundred degrees at ten in the morning. That was Afghanistan.
Creed knew it would only get hotter. He already felt the weight of his gear, seventy-five pounds riding on his back. He couldn’t think about that right now. It didn’t matter how uncomfortable he felt, he was there to clear a path through hostile territory. The marine platoon he was assigned to certainly didn’t care. To them he was a perpetual outsider. Creed and his dog were there to do a job and then move on to the next platoon.
Only now he couldn’t see Rufus. The dog knew not to go too far out of his sight. Eighteen months old and he still had that easy lope of a Labrador puppy. But everything else about the dog projected strength and discipline. He got right down to business and worked hard for the same goal.
Always the same goal—find toy.
So intent he’d ignore his own discomforts. Creed considered the blistering heat and wondered if he should start an IV on Rufus before dehydration started.
He couldn’t see the dog but he knew he was there. He felt his presence even when he couldn’t quite see him. Still, Creed watched and listened. He felt his own senses heighten. Unlike Rufus, he couldn’t smell the ammonium nitrate of buried IEDs, but he could hear the breeze rustling through the nearby cornfields. His eyes could pick out a humped area of loose dirt. Sometimes even see the wire sticking up.
In camp you’d hear a blast in the distance and you knew a wandering goat or an unsuspecting villager had tripped another IED. You acknowledged it, shrugged at anyone who might have heard it, too, then you went on with your routine. But every time they went
beyond the wire, things changed. Creed knew he and his dog were easy targets.
“First out, first to die.”
And in Afghanistan the Taliban targeted dogs. The bastards knew the emotional attachment. They knew what taking out the dog would do, not just to the handler, but to the whole platoon.
Creed thought it was a bit ironic, since each platoon regarded them as outsiders. Marine dog handlers came in for a short period of time and usually moved on. They rarely got a chance to become a part of the tight-knit family the others had created. Creed was used to being treated with some level of suspicion. With each unit he knew they were wondering if he and his dog would get them through safely or if he’d get them all killed.
But Creed and Rufus had been with Logan and his men for almost a month. Too long. Creed had seen things he wasn’t meant to see, and Logan knew it.
He glanced back to see if Logan was following, carefully stepping in Creed’s footsteps like Creed had taught him, looking for the shaving cream they used to mark the safe spots. But now he couldn’t see Logan. The huge mud wall blocked his view.
Where the hell was Logan?
He stopped and looked around.
Something was wrong.
There wasn’t anyone in sight. He needed to find Rufus. And he needed to find him quickly.
He rubbed his eyes, and when he opened them the mud wall was inches from his face. His fingers were muddy. The sun had disappeared into a dark sky. He blinked. Swiped at his eyes again. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. His chest hurt. His body ached. His limbs were pinned down.
Buried.
Only the realization didn’t bring panic. A calmness wrapped around him. All he wanted to do was close his eyes. He invited the dream back. Wanted to return to the sun even if it took him back to Afghanistan. It was better to breathe that godforsaken country’s eternal dust than not be able to breathe at all.
