Nightmare-Z

by S. A. Lowry

  “Kick out the medic, we got a kicker,” the Lieutenant orders.

  Andrew can hear a man on the other end of the hand mic acknowledge the transmission.

  Few seconds later, Andrew sees a the QRF medic racing up to the location of the ill man. Once the medic reaches the Iraqi’s location, he quickly kneels to the ground as he takes his assault pack off and drops it out in front of him. Once the medic realizes what the situation is, he yells back to his platoon leader with an update.

  “He’s choking on his tongue. Bring me some bodies over here to hold him down!” the medic yells as he removes his gloves and proceeds to prevent the man from swallowing his tongue while placing two fingers into the afflicted man’s mouth.

  A few seconds go by until the man lies limp on the pavement. As a result, the medic screams out in pain as he leans backwards and kicks the lying Iraqi in the side of his head in order to release his hand from the man’s mouth.

  The man now appears to be dead for his seizure has ceased. Andrew watches as the QRF medic crawls back over to him after falling back after the afflicted man bit his fingers while trying to prevent him from swallowing his tongue. The medic shakes his head. Few minutes later, some soldiers come walking out of their MRAP vehicles with body bags in their hands as the medic attempts to wrap his hand in order to stop the bleeding.

  They bag him up and leave him there while they go back to the truck to report the situation up to higher. Around an hour goes by before anyone from the chain of command begins showing up to get the scoop on what happened. All while Andrew and the Staff Sergeant continue to pull their guard shift while having a loaded body bag to stare at in front of them.

  As the first F-150 truck arrives with some high ranking individuals in it, Andrew notices the body bag beginning to move. At first he cannot believe his eyes, because the man inside was declared dead by a medic. He pulls off his sunglasses and wipes them down. Once he puts them back on, he continues to notice more movement. Slight movement it is, but movement nonetheless. He reports this to his NCO.

  “Don’t worry about it Wilcott. Dead bodies twitch all the time, especially after they have just recently passed. Is this your first time seeing a dead body?” now with a concerned face the Staff Sergeant caringly asks.

  “Yes I have. Two of them,” replies Andrew with sadness in his eyes.

  “Well then, I am sorry to hear that. Some twitch and some don’t. This one is a twitcher. Try not to get spooked, okay buddy?” he responds.

  Andrew decides to put his weapon down and come up out of the cover he received from the sand bag emplacement.

  “Yeah roger, got it.”, Andrew calmly replies. Shortly after, the bag stops moving. What a freaking day he tells himself as his replacements for the gate guard arrive in the mayor cell’s SUV.

  Trevor sits in his blue air force ‘aim high’ chair as all the other squad leaders, who are also sitting down in their personal chairs, await their platoon sergeant for end of day notes which gets put out by the company.

  All of them have their notepads and pens ready. Upon receiving notes, the standard procedure is for each squad leader to gather their men together and disseminate information to eachother and inform them of the next day’s taskings and purpose.

  As they wait for their senior leadership to arrive, the men converse among eachother and crack jokes. Some of them talk about the recent events which has unfolded while others try to avoid it by changing the topic. Trevor stays silent while he still tries to contemplate in his head the entire situation and what to make of it. In addition to this, he can not seem to forgot that one soldier he talked to in formation with the akward eye color. That soldier did not look right to him.

  Few minutes go by, then the platoon sergeant with the platoon leader comes walking in with their notepads open. They get between the squad leaders and begin putting out newly formed information to them. The platoon sergeant explains that the Battalion Commander, the two Sergeant Majors, the Battalion XO and their staffs had to catch a last minute flight to Kuwait for a meeting with other senior leadership regarding the pull-out situation in the coming months.

  Trevor doesn’t buy this. The platoon leader also informs his leadership that there is a bug floating around making guys sick. He explains that the senior care provider for the Battalion, who is an officer and also supposed to be the Army’s version of an official doctor, says it is an apparent flu spreading around.

  The platoon leader informs the men of how it spreads. For example, such minor things like not covering up coughs with your hands and sharing drinks. Trevor does not buy this either. A few more various notes were put out regarding their upcoming missions and times they will be conducting them. Trevor writes down all this new information in his notepad upon the conclusion of the meeting. Once the meeting is finished, the squad leaders stand up and gather up their respective squads.

  Once Trevor gathers his men together, who were standing by outside in the hallway, he takes them out back for a cigerette while he deciminates information to them. All of them, especially his team leader Sergeant Muniz, hacked away at him for information regarding the strange things that been going on.

  As Trevor begins putting out his notes, the squad becomes startled as gunfire out in the distance erupts. Small bursts here and there followed up by single shots fired. They are not sure where it is coming from, however, they believe it originated near the perimeter in the direction of the front gate. Trevor shrugs off the sudden sounds of the pop shots and continues putting out information.

  He informs his squad members of upcoming missions and the lame excuse they got told about their senior leadership skipping town. He also informs them of the flu like symptoms everyone has been getting, which he applies his own theory regarding the matter and possible solutions.

  “Look gents, we all know there is something fishy going on around here. They say it’s the flu, but I ain’t never seen any type of flu spread like this and make a man’s eyes turn white. Whatever this is, it’s spreading through shared drinks and the use of communual gym equipment. You got sweaty nasty soldiers who don’t clean themselves using the gym equipment and not wiping it off. Then you got god knows how many more potential victims throughout the day as they share that same piece of equipment. I am not asking you all, I am telling you. From here on out, no one in this squad is to go to the gym. We need to start avoiding public areas like the PX(post exchange) and DFAC during high trafficable hours. You go anywhere, let me know so I can approve it,” Trevor explains with a serious look on his face.

  Everyone in his squad appears to be frustrated silently as they took it for a typical Army over-reaction incident. “Quit with the damned poopy faces. Besides, PT is an outdoor event anyway. I know you all don’t like this, but no one here is sick and I intend to keep it that way. Got it?” Trevor asks with conviction as he stares his soldiers down.

  They all sound off with a sarcastic ‘roger sergeant’ in sync with eachother.

  “Alright, now don’t let me catch you goofing off. I’ll have that ass,” Trevor threatens as he walks off into the tent. As he leaves, Gilroy starts complaining to himself with various cuss words. Christopher overheard this. As a result, Christopher begins to yell at him while making him do push ups. That is when Trevor walks back out the door and stops them as they begin to scatter.

  “Hey that supply list you all submitted to your team leader, Price you are in charge of that. Got to start making you senior Specialists grow some hair on your nuts. Take that list up to the CP and get whats on it from the supply guy. When you’re done, drop it off to your team leader,” Trevor orders while pointing at Price.

  “No problem sergeant, i’m on it like Chuck Norris on a can of whoop ass,” Price humerously states. Reagal gives Price’s joke his seal of approval as he places two thumbs up. Trevor walks off with a smile trying to hold back his chuckle. The gunfire ceases.

  Price heads back to his tent area and proceeds to throw on his ACU top. Once he is ready to go, h
e gathers up his PC(patrol cap) and sunglasses. As he walks off, he drags his weapon off the bunk and he heads for the front door to the CP. Upon entering the CP, he notices his First Sergeant and Company Commander, along with ten other NCO’s staring at a monitor with a shocked look on their faces. They appear to be so pre-occupied with whats going on the screen, they don’t even notice him walk by and proceed to slip into the crowd in the back.

  Everyone is silent. Drawing full attention to the large monitor mounted on the wall. Price decides to take a look from the back. What he begins looking at is a live feed from the Battalion TOC’s air scan high up in the sky overwatching Basrah City. What the monitor shows, is apparent riots in the streets unfolding in down town Basrah. He notices burning cars, people shooting automatic weapons at charging crowds and what appears to be women running with their children in hand being chased down by various assailants and then violently being consumed into the mob upon getting caught.

  Pure chaos unfolding he tells himself as he slips down the hallway to the back room where the supply sergeant sits behind his desk playing solitaire on his computer.

  “Hey sergeant, do you know what the hell is going on out there?” Price asks with a worried look.

  The supply sergeant rudely ignores his question.

  “What the hell do you want? Don’t you see that I am busy?” the sergeant sarcastically asks.

  Price submits the list his squad needs. “I don’t have all this crap, soldier. Get out of my office,” the supply sergeant angrily orders seeming frustrated that Price distracted him from his game.

  Price obliges and marches out the door and slips behind the group of senior leadership still observing the air scan feed with wide glooming eyes in silence. Price glances one more time at the monitor as he walks out the door unnoticed.

  “Stupid worthless POG(person other than grunt)!” Price yells out loud in anger as he walks back to his tent to let his squad in on the news. Once Price enters the tent, he goes directly to his squad leader Trevor. Upon entering Trevor’s living area, Price raises up his hooch to let him in on the news. That is when he notices Trevor watchin Desperate Housewives on his laptop with his headphones in. Unaware that Price is there, he continues to watch as Reagal, his best friend, bumps into him after losing in a game of cards to other members of his squad.

  “Hey bro you get us that list?” curiously asks Reagal as he glances at his empty hands. “No bro, that deuschbag POG kicked me out of his supply room. Also, there’s some weird stuff going down. They got live feeds of chaos unfolding in the streets on air scan. Our whole leadership down there is freaking out,” explains Price as he walks up to his squad leader, still unaware of his presence as he taps him on the shoulder.

  Reagal walks back over to where the card game was going on with members of his squad.

  Trevor pauses his show and takes his headphones off. “Man, I can’t get over how crazy these women are. You know any girls like that Price? Oh yeah, did you get us that list?” Trevor asks as he glances over to Price’s empty hands.

  Gunfire erupts once again off into the distance.

  Now ignoring it, Price explains to Trevor what happened. Trevor now, with a concerned look on his face, asks him if he told anyone about it.

  Price, with a confused look on his face responds, “No I haven’t Sergeant. Umm, I mean yes I have. Well sort of.”

  That is when other members of his squad burst in through Trevor’s hooch. All of them now surrounding their squad leader, ask what is going on. Hunter with a bit of curiousity on his face, Reagal with excitement, Ringo stoic and Christopher concerned. Gilroy wasn’t present because nobody invited him to participate in the card game. He usually just stays on his bunk and hogs up all the bandwith downloading all the Men in Black movies that been taking him all tour to download. Usually a few megabytes a day before he gets booted off. Running joke in the squad stands, he never even bothered to ask anyone if they owned the trilogy. At least eight people in the tent have those movies on their laptops.

  Trevor stands up and tries to calm the panic. “Y’all don’t say nothing about this. Especially Gilroy, that boy will duke his pants. I’m gonna go hit up the platoon daddy and get some information off him. Don’t be jumping to no damned conclusions or spreading the word. Got it? I swear, i’ll ring all y’alls necks out!” Trevor threatens as he gets dressed to leave out the door.

  “You think Sadr is trying to take the city back? It will be like 08 all over again and then i’ll get my CIB(Combat Infantryman Badge),” an overly excited Reagal exclaims.

  “I said shut the hell up!” Trevor yells as he walks out the door.

  The gunfire stops. An hour goes by while Trevor’s squad waits impatiently and decides to play another game of cards. Reagal loses again. He then tells the group he has to go take a leak and walks off. Christopher gets a funny feeling after he’s been gone for ten minutes and decides to go check the bathroom.

  “Reagal, are you taking a dump?” Christopher asks to an empty bathroom.

  Only his echo responds. Once he goes back into the hallway, more members of the platoon come walking out. They begin asking Christopher what the deal was.

  Now angry beyond belief, Christopher yells at the top of voice down the hallway.

  “Reagal, get out here now!”

  Reagal comes stumbling out of one of the tents into the hallway engaging in conversations with more members of the platoon. “Bear crawl to me you dumb bastard!” demands Christopher. Reagal complies. Upon reaching the edge of his team leader’s feet, Christopher tells him to start knocking out push ups while proceeding to yell at him. That is when the platoon sergeant, the platoon leader and Trevor comes walking in with even more concerned looks on their faces.

  “Everybody gather around. Sure you all heard of what’s going down thanks to Price,” the platoon sergeant angrily states.

  Price, now in the hallway because of all the commotion, places his head down in shame. At that moment, Andrew walks into the hallway of Trevor’s tent to tell his older brother what happened earlier when he notices a platoon meeting going on. He steps off to the side and out of the way so the platoon can conduct it’s business. Trevor notices his brother standing there and puts his hand up signaling him to wait there until they are done.

  “Listen up guys. I am going to explain something real simple here. We don’t know whats going on right now. From what we know, it doesn’t seem to be Sadr’s militia. Just riots and chaos sparked from an unknown source and by an unknown group of peo . . . ,” the platoon sergeant explains as he is cut off by loud incoming sirens.

  Everybody in the hallway scurries with a quickness down the passage way and out the back to waiting bomb shelters. Multiple loud explosions seconds apart can be heard off into the distance as they get closer. They all knew this because the closer they land to one’s position, the more of the concussion you feel in the center of your chest. This was real close.

  As Trevor and Andrew get outside on their way to shelter, they see some of the smoke of where it impacted off into the distance near the perimeter and around empty guard towers. All of the men huddle into one overhead bomb shelter reinforced by concrete and sandbags. A few more loud explosions go off not too far from their location. Andrew searches around inside the bunker for his brother to bum a smoke off of. After passing a few guys in their flip flops, he finds Trevor sitting down leaning up against the bunker wall lighting up a Miami cigerette.

  “Hey bro, there you are. I ran out can I bum one?” Andrew asks.

  Trevor hands him the one he just lit and reaches down in the pack for a new one.

  “Freaking IDF(indirect fire) man. First air scan, then this. I’m never going to finish my show,” whines Trevor with a funny looking facial expression.

  The explosions stop as the apparent rocket attack is over.

  “You and that damn show. I’m starting to worry about you man,” answers Andrew as he kneels down on the gravel to take a seat by his brother.


  Moments later, an announcment over the loudspeakers can be heard for all to hear.

  “Remain in a hardened shelter due to the increased threat, all non-esstienal movement is limited.” The common announcement which gets broadcasted across the base when attacks like this happen which is routine on FOB Basrah. They must stay inside or near the bunker until the ‘All Clear’ message is broadcasted. This can usually take up to two hours.

  Trevor looks at his watch.

  “They got twelve minutes to be rolling past us. Three minutes has already passed,” explains Trevor regarding the QRF’s response time to incidents like these.

  The standard is to be up and pushing out Camp Delta to ECP Ritz within fifthteen minutes. Andrew agrees. Everyone in the bunker begins conversing amongst themselves as the platoon sergeant monitors his personal radio on company net to find out the situation regarding the rocket attack. The bunker is located on the backside of the tent which faces out towards a main road withiin FOB Basrah. It is blocked off by a twenty foot high fenceline reinforced with ditches on the ground and quadruple stack C-wire. Beyond that, there is a clear view of perimeter road and the fence line to include some Iraqi villages and open desert.

  Now with an apparent grin on Trevor’s face, “So boy how’s your day going?” Trevor asks his brother.

  “Oh my god . . . . ,” Andrew responds. He goes on in detail about his gate guard ordeal. A shocked looking Trevor, counters with his stories regarding the men eating a dog, the front gate showdown between the Iraqi Army and the civilians and the abandoned villages/checkpoints they rolled past.

  After acknowledging both of their stories combined, it left them an eerie feeling and type of silence that couldn’t be described by the pair. Andrew also brings up all the flight leaving out throughout the day and night. Trevor counters with what he saw in front of the airport. The brothers conclude something bad is looming in the air and they both don’t know what to make of it.

  “You better be on one of those damn flights tomorrow boy. Wish you weren’t coming back either. Unmanned gates, insurgents giving up, men eating dogs and unguarded perimeters. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Oh yeah and the air scan ordeal. This is only going to get worse,” Trevor preaches as he finishes his cigerette only to light up another one.