by Brian Keene
“Yes. Her motor skills are decreasing rapidly.”
“How long does she have?”
“In this stage of Alzheimer’s, it is difficult to say. I’ve seen some hang on for years after the fourth stage has set in. Others go quickly. All we can do is keep her comfortable.”
“I just hate bringing Mika to see her like this, you know? I’m worried about how it will effect her.”
“That’s understandable, Ellen. And while some studies suggest that it’s beneficial for patients, we can’t even really be sure that your mother is aware of the presence of those around her. I know it’s not much comfort, but at least she’s calm and peaceful, for the most part.”
“Who are you?” she moaned. “Where are you?”
She closed her eyes and let her cheek loll against the pillow, wishing the sky would rain flowers again.
“Who am I?” she whispered. “Please...”
The voices disappeared.
At last, she slept.
When she awoke again, the room was dark and cold. She shivered. There were flowers on the dresser, but she no longer knew what they were.
STORY NOTE: This story started as just a fragment. That fragment was something I originally wrote for a multi-author collaboration projects—two dozen authors all contributing to a single short story. Unfortunately, the project never came to fruition. I no longer remember who was involved or what the premise was. All I know is that it was never published. Years later, after I bought a new computer and was in the process of transferring my files over to it, I ran across the fragment and re-worked it into this story. Alzheimer’s has impacted my family in a very personal way several times. It’s a truly terrifying disease. I find it especially scary because none of us really know what’s going on inside the mind of the victim.
BABYLON FALLING
Southern Iraq
March 2003
“We are so fucked!”
And they were.
Bloom coughed. Goggles protected his eyes, but they didn’t prevent him from swallowing sand. Neither did his handkerchief, which was tied around his mouth and nose, and drenched with sweat.
He was perched atop an M-88 tank recovery unit, rumbling north toward Baghdad with an immense column of other vehicles from the 3rd Infantry. The convoy was nearly seven thousand strong. The M-88 held a two-man crew, and it was Bloom’s turn topside. Myers stayed below, safe from the harsh desert conditions, bobbing his head to Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” Myers played it over and over on a loop during the march.
“All I see turns to brownnnnnn,” Myers sang, “as the sun burns the grounnnnnnnnd, and my eyes fill with sannnnnd, as I scan this wasted lannnddd...”
Bloom began to sing along, too. “Trying to find, trying to find where I’ve beeeee— ack!”
He choked as more grit blew into his mouth.
They’d left Kuwait City before dawn, driving past gorgeous luxury homes and seaside resorts unlike anything they’d ever seen back in the States. But soon, those faded from sight and the desert took over. The only thing for miles, other than camels and their nomadic herders, were massive power lines stretching across the horizon and oil pumps, thrusting into the earth. By midday, these disappeared too, leaving only the featureless brown desert. Even the lizards and birds inhabiting the wasteland vanished, hiding from the incoming storm.
In Iraq’s late spring, hot winds swept in from the north, raising clouds of sand and dust several thousand feet into the air. The locals called these storms shamals. A media embed in Kuwait City had told Bloom and Myers that this particular shamal was the worst in decades, with winds whipping across the desert at over fifty miles-per-hour, burying everything under a fine coat of yellow and brown. The storm had interrupted bombing missions and ground combat, but not their advance. They were given orders to roll, and roll they did.
Earlier that afternoon, their column had fallen under attack from an Iraqi artillery barrage, and one of the Paladin motorized howitzers caught fire and exploded. The crew escaped, but two of the soldiers were injured. One of them had suffered third-degree burns on his hands. Bloom cringed, remembering the smell, and the way the man’s blistered fingers had resembled blackened breakfast sausages. Now, while shells were dropped on two Iraqi forward observation posts in retaliation for the attack, their section of the column had been ordered to wait.
Bloom took advantage of the delay. Myers replaced him at the gun, while he ducked inside. He wolfed down an MRE—Meal Ready to Eat (mixed with sand)—and then cleaned the grime from his face with a baby wipe, wincing as the alcohol came in contact with his red, wind-burned skin. Then he drank greedily from his canteen. Outside the M-88, Bloom heard artillery explosions rolling across the arid landscape. Soon, a report came over the radio that the opposition had been obliterated, and the lead forces were to hold their position to allow the rest of the division to catch up.
“We are so fucked,” Bloom repeated, climbing topside to join Myers. “This goddamned sand is everywhere!”
“Could be worse.” Myers’s sounded tired. His laconic Texan drawl was even slower than usual. “Bad as these storms are, the temperature’s only in the seventies. Imagine how this shit would be if it was mid-summer and a hundred and twenty!”
Bloom shrugged. “We’ll be home by then. Won’t have to worry about it.”
Sharp and Rendell sauntered over; free for the moment while a mechanic unclogged the dust from their medical truck’s engine. Sharp’s pale skin and blonde hair were crusted with dirt, and when Rendell spat a wad of Copenhagen, Bloom noticed ugly blisters on chafed lips. A media embed trailed along behind the two soldiers, squinting against the blowing sand. His expensive sunglasses seemed to offer little protection.
“This sucks,” Rendell moaned. “Why don’t we just pave over this country and build some shopping malls?”
“That’s how they’ll know they’re free,” Myers said, nodding. “When they got a Starbucks and a Wal-Mart on every corner in Baghdad.”
Sergeant O’Malley soon joined them, followed by Privates Williams, Sanchez, Riser, and Jefferson. O’Malley was older than the rest, and at thirty-two, a veteran of the first Gulf War. The younger men looked up to him. O’Malley was originally from Long Island. Like Myers, Sanchez hailed from Texas. Williams came from North Carolina, Jefferson from Mississippi, and Riser from Baltimore.
Shading his eyes with his hands, Jefferson surveyed their surroundings while another artillery explosion echoed across the plain.
“Look at it,” he said. “This is Hell on earth, if you ask me.”
“Can’t be any worse than that garbage dump Bloom comes from,” Myers said. “What’s that city called? Trench-ton?”
Bloom punched him in the shoulder. “Trenton, asshole. And don’t be talking shit about Jersey.”
All the men laughed.
“What’s going on back home?” O’Malley asked the reporter.
“Big protest in San Francisco,” the media embed answered. “Martin Sheen and Sean Penn spoke at an anti-war rally.”
Riser grimaced. “Does Martin Sheen think he really is the President? Somebody needs to remind him he just plays one on TV.”
“What’s Sean Penn famous for?” Williams asked.
“Fucking Madonna, apparently,” Riser answered. “And that’s all. He couldn’t make a good movie to save his life.”
“What about Fast Times?” Sanchez wiped his goggles on a clean rag. “He was pretty good in that.”
“Oh, that took a lot of talent.” Riser shook his head. “He played a stoned surfer. Not exactly academy award material, dude.”
“My Daddy was protested against when he came back from Vietnam,” O’Malley said quietly, his eyes focused on the sand dunes. “He served with the 82nd, saw a world of shit. Did his time, made it through, and came home. Got off the plane at the airport and they spit on him! He was so shocked that he just walked away. He walked. I think that fucked with him in ways the war never did, you know?”
The others were silent, reflecting.
“I can’t wait for one of these neo-hippie motherfuckers to spit on me,” O’Malley continued. “Figure I owe them for him, and then some.”
They waited for another hour, trying in vain to stay shielded from the shamal. With nothing to do, O’Malley gave them busy work. They checked and cleaned their gear—rifles, ammunition, body armor, helmets, Saratoga suits to protect against chemical agents, trenching shovels, sleeping bags, and gas masks. Their gas masks were to be within arm’s reach at all times, and they’d been trained to don them instantly in case of attack; told there were nine seconds between life and death. So far, they hadn’t needed to use them. They wrote letters home, tucked them away for safekeeping, and re-wrote their blood type on their helmets and sleeves.
The only thing they didn’t do was sleep.
Eventually, the order came to move on. They proceeded on, into the shamal. The roads vanished amidst the storm, so they followed in the tracks of the vehicles ahead of them. The tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles could go faster, but the column moved at the speed of its slowest vehicle—a wagon train with everything from tanker trucks bearing fuel and water, to Humvees bearing young American soldiers. Radio chatter was kept to a minimum. Drivers focused on not driving off the roads.
The sandstorm’s brutality increased. Topside again, Bloom wrapped his bandanna around his nose and mouth. He wished he had an asthma inhaler, some vapor rub, even an oxygen bottle—anything to make it easier for him to breathe.
They passed a hut, several unexploded cluster bombs from the previous Gulf War, and the wreckage of an Iraqi tank, before coming across a burned out observation post. Lying amidst the carnage were the charred remains of an enemy soldier. Bloom wondered if the blowing sand would cover up the corpse before the man’s companions found him.
They encountered no further opposition. Occasionally, they came across Bedouin women and children, who waved as they rolled past. Bloom wondered what they were doing out in the storm, but decided that they were probably used to such weather. He debated throwing the kids some hard candy but decided against it—visions of the children being run down by the next vehicle in the convoy while they scampered for the treat ran though his head. Visibility was worsening, and it would be easy for a driver to miss the children bent over in the path of the column.
The storm stayed with them, a constant nuisance. Word came back that there were three Iraqi regular army divisions ahead, but that one of them had already surrendered. O’Malley told them that the commanders didn’t anticipate any serious opposition in the south. The troops deployed there were mostly made up of unpaid, unfed conscripts— more than eager to toss their weapons aside and stand down in exchange for a hot meal. The wagon train was supposed to be a psychological offensive—an effort to convince the enemy that resistance was futile. Bloom had heard that the U.S. and British commanders even carried paperwork that allowed Iraqi commanders to sign and surrender their troops on the spot.
The winds reached seventy-five miles an hour. Riser cracked over the radio that they ought to rename the route the Hurricane Highway. This was greeted by laughter, and then a stern admonition to knock it off.
Bloom blinked the sand from his eyes, and tried to focus. “We are so fucked.”
He was very tired.
• • •
It was almost nightfall when they came across the old man.
He stood along the roadside, propped up by a tall, gnarled wooden staff. Shrouded in colorful robes, only his leathery hands and face were visible. He watched them pass. His expression was impassive. Several of the soldiers waved at him, but he did not return the gesture. Rendell shot him the finger, but this, too, earned no reply.
When Myers pulled alongside him, Bloom stared into the old man’s eyes. They were black, like two drops of India ink, and despite the blowing sand, the old man did not blink. Indeed, he seemed almost comfortable in the storm. As Bloom watched, the old man dropped his staff and gestured at the yellow sky.
“The fuck’s he doing?” Myers called out.
“I don’t know.” Bloom was mesmerized by the actions. “Having a heart attack? Praying to Allah?”
The old man’s stare never left his. Their eyes seemed locked together. As the M-88 rolled past, Bloom’s head swiveled around, unable to break the connection. The old man said something, but the words were torn away by the howling wind. As Bloom watched, he knelt, and with one bony finger, drew a symbol in the sand. Then, another vehicle blocked Bloom’s view, and the old man passed from sight.
“That was weird,” Bloom muttered.
The M-88 swerved suddenly, and Bloom had to grab on tight to avoid falling off.
“Yo,” he shouted. “What the fuck, Myers?”
“Sorry! Almost nodded off there for a moment. I’m fucking tired.”
“Want to trade off?”
“We can’t stop, man. You know that. Besides, you haven’t had any more sleep than I have.”
Bloom knew his friend was right. Exhausted and covered in dirt, they were both operating on pure adrenaline. So were the rest of the convoy. He also knew that they probably would not stop all night, and even if they did, there would be little time for sleep. Instead, the commanders would have them working all night repairing the vehicles that had fallen victim to the storm conditions. If they slept at all, it would be in short shifts.
Suddenly, without warning, the sandstorm increased with a shocking intensity. Furious winds rocked the lighter vehicles, buffeting them from side to side. Bloom’s bandanna was ripped from his face, sailing away before he could grab it. Blowing sand gnawed at his nose and mouth.
“The hell is going on out there?” Myers asked.
Before Bloom could answer, the sun disappeared behind the dunes. The sky was bathed in a strange orange glow as the fading daylight filtered through the swirling dust. Bloom shivered, watching as the vehicles in front and back of them took on a spectral quality in the billowing sand. The ones further away faded completely from sight. Within minutes, the last of the light vanished, plunging them into darkness. The vehicles in the column turned on their headlights, but they did little against the storm.
Bloom gasped as the truck in front of them disappeared into the dense cloud. Then came the lightning. Thunder boomed across the sky. To Bloom, it sounded very much like artillery shells. He coughed, trying to breathe. The sand was in his eyes and nose and ears, and the more he coughed, the more sand he inhaled. He sneezed out dust. His eyes began to water, washing out clods of dirt and leaving balls of grit hanging from his eyelashes.
Something pelted him on the shoulder. Then another—hard.
Jesus, he thought, did I just get shot?
A moment later he realized that it was raining mud.
“Oh, fuck this! Myers, I’m coming down.”
Abandoning the gun, he dropped down inside the vehicle, slamming the hatch shut behind him.
“Don’t say anything,” he warned. “It’s only for a minute. Then I’ll go back up.”
“Couldn’t say much if I wanted to.” Bleary-eyed, Myers pointed to the radio. “Nothing but static the last ten minutes.”
“You can’t get a hold of anybody?”
“Nothing, man. Strangest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
Myers tapped his fingers to the drums on the ‘Kashmir’ loop.
Bloom began to sing along again. “I am a traveler of both time and space—”
“Hey, who sings this?” Myers asked him.
“Led Zeppelin.”
“Well, then shut up and let them.”
Bloom punched him in the shoulder, grabbed a baby wipe, and cleaned more sand from his face.
Myers focused on the road. Bloom could tell that the combination of the sandstorm, fatigue, unfamiliar terrain, and now blackout conditions were working against him.
“You okay, Myers?”
“I can’t keep my eyes open. I’m driving while standing up and I’m still fallin
g asleep!”
“Let me take over.”
“We can’t stop, especially now. We’ll get rear-ended.”
As if to illustrate his point, the truck in front of them suddenly swerved back into view, veering off the path and vanishing again into the blackness.
Myers gasped. “Where the hell are they going?”
“They probably nodded off. Now let me drive!”
“I’m okay,” Myers insisted. “Just chill, and help me watch ahead of us.”
It was a long and dangerous night. The storm and fatigue drained the caravan in a way the Iraqi forces never could. Drivers fell asleep at the wheel and veered off their route. Soldiers behind them fought through on foot to wake the drivers and get them moving. Then another driver in the convoy would fall asleep, and the whole ordeal started over again. Traveling off-road, they’d lose sight of the vehicles in front of them and turn off in other directions.
The radios worked sporadically. There was mostly just the hiss of static, occasionally interrupted by a snatch of confused conversation or barked orders. The commander of an Abrams tank radioed that he was lost, couldn’t see the rest of the convoy, and was almost out of fuel. Others were dispatched to find him, but nobody could locate him. Then the commander stopped responding.
Rendell wondered over the radio if their night vision goggles would help.
“NOD’s can’t see through sand—” O’Malley’s curt reply was cut short by an explosive whine of feedback, and the radio went dead.
“The fuck is going on?” Bloom asked.
“Look at that!” Myers pointed out the window.
The tip of the radio antenna glowed with a ball of blue energy. Bloom grabbed the handset to ask if anyone else was experiencing the phenomena, and got shocked.
“Ouch!” He sucked at his tingling fingers. “What the hell is that?”
Myers shrugged, gaping at the phenomenon. “Static electricity? St. Elmo’s Fire? Who knows?”
“How are we supposed to fight a war in this shit?”
