Nightmare-Z

by S. A. Lowry

  “Everybody and his damn mother will be wearing these for now on. Only exception is mission time. Nobody is allowed in the gym anymore either. The phone center near us is off limits as well. As far as the internet and phones going down, don’t expect them to come back up any time soon,” the leader explains as he passes out the germ masks.

  All of the soldiers are frustrated by the news as it is easily noticable with their facial expressions. Their leader then informs them of an upcoming mission tonight after dark and to get the trucks ready an hour prior after receiving the thumbs up from Trevor regarding the status on his newly fixed truck.

  “Also, I know we have a few bed ridden, sick like soldiers within our ranks. I’ve identified five. Squad leaders, let those guys know they are not to be going out. Escort them over to the aid station and turn them over to the company medics. They will be staying over at the TMC(troop medical clinic) for the next week across the FOB for monitoring and evaluation. More on this flu, it seems to be more than the name. It starts you off with cold chills and excessive sweating. Coughing follows and bodily aches. Once you are in the advanced final stages, you slip into seizure mode. Once you reach that stage, it is 100% fatal. Our unit Physician believes it is spread by saliva and sweat. Any type of direct infection into the bloodstream, speeds up and advances the effects of the sickness ranging between minutes to hours. This is some very serious stuff guys, don’t play this off. Wear the damn mask and limit the whining. Also, limit your contact with other people just to your squad members and within the platoon. For the guys who share a room with our sick ones, you will be moving out right after this meeting,” the platoon sergeant explains with an apparent uncertainity and fear in his eyes.

  Genuine concern is expressed in his words, something which has never been shown before in this man. This led all the soldiers in the hallway to take what he was saying ten times more serious than on any other average day or situation.

  One of the soldiers raises his hand to ask a question. The platoon sergeant lifts his chin in response.

  “Is this happening only here or else where as well?” asks the soldier in a broken and worried tone of voice. “I don’t know. Nobody knows. I assume it’s happening else where because alot of the information we received was from outside sources helping us cope with this before we went black on communications with the outside world,” the platoon sergeant responds.

  Everybody now shakes their heads in disbelief. A few of the soldiers in the back call out a few words while another one asks what he meant by “black on communications”. To calm panic, the platoon sergeant proceeds to explain, “Now now, don’t be freaking out. Systems probably went down for other reasons. Reasons we don’t know of yet. Could be technical in nature or other. Soon we will figure this out and i’ll let all of you know whats up. Until then, keep your mind occupied and focus on the task at hand. We still have to run our patrols and focus on the mission before we leave here. Are we all clear?”

  Everybody in the hallway nods their heads in agreement. The senior leadership walks out of the tent. The platoon seems to be at a point of unease now. Apparent confusion and fear fills the soldier’s faces. Trevor, sort of still in a state of denial to the changing world around him, ignores most of it and goes about his business back to his room to finish cleaning his weapon.

  He wants to be lost in thoughts of his family and his brother whom he dearly misses. Once he sits down, he remembers what he just been told. Those sick soldiers in his platoon need to be brought to the aide station. He stands up to gather some members of his platoon including Hunter and Ringo whom he found talking with Price and Reagal about Gilroy’s incompetence and laziness.

  “Hey, ya’ll give me a hand with those bed ridden boys,” Trevor orders as he walks into one of the sick soldier’s tent. The group follows Trevor.

  An hour passes by before they can actually get these soldiers ready to be moved. Most of them were so weak, they needed help getting their boots on. Trevor and his men had to help eachother lift them up and sling their arms over Ringo and Hunter’s shoulders so they could assist each soldier one by one to the aide station. Their sick like coughs, complaints of aches and headaches only reinforced the soldier’s fears of coming down with their sickness. They used a special like care and remained gentle to those afflicted so they wouldn’t cause them anymore needless pain as they helped them walk.

  As Ringo and Hunter helped one of the soldiers down the walkway once outside of the tent, the soldier tells them to stop with a sense of urgency while he gets to his knees on the side of a hesco barrier and begins puking up his lunch he had brought to him in bed hours ago.

  Ringo and Hunter now stand behind him with a look of pity on their faces asking if the soldier was okay and if he needed any water. The soldier proceeds to tell them he is fine while choking on his on vomit trying to get the rest out of his esophagus. Trevor and Reagal passes up the group with another soldier supported on their shoulders by the afflicted’s arms. As they pass by Ringo and Hunter, the soldier moans in despair while whisphering under his breathe a verse from the bible to achieve some type of comfort level to help him cope with his painful illness as he passes by the soldier on the ground still puking up his guts.

  “Alright man, (continued coughing), I think i’m good. Please help me up guys,” the soldier desperately pleas.

  Ringo and Hunter quickly lifts him up and proceeds down the walkway to the nearby aide station. Hours go by once Trevor and a few of his men drop the sick soldiers off. Many of the soldiers within Trevor’s platoon begin getting dressed and grabbing their equipment to head down to the trucks in order to prepare for the upcoming counter indirect fire patrol. Prior to this, upon cleaning his weapon, Trevor laid in bed still lost in thought. Of course, he believes everything will be alright, however, his sub-concious feels a storm brewing. He can not shake this feeling of dread. Something which may be coming soon. This feeling he can not control and only wishes to be in his wife’s arms as he watches his children play in the living room while sitting on his soft couch waiting for Andrew to swing by in his vehicle with meat and charcoal to barbeque.

  Upon arriving to the trucks, Trevor’s men already began to get the truck ready. They stock up on ice and water for their cooler inside the truck while Price mounts his machine gun in the turret and conducts radio checks with other vehicles and company net. Hunter gives the MRAP windows a final wipe down and adjusts the rear view mirrors on the outside of the vehicle so Trevor can see the trucks behind him in the convey. Christopher checks his soldier’s equipment for eye protection, night vision devices and various other standard pre-mission checks.

  Gilroy stands there as usual smoking a cigerette and distancing himself from the group while Reagal and Ringo bring more water back to the truck. Trevor sits in his TC side seat while plotting a navigational route over his Blue Force Tracker(A navigational screen mounted inside the vehicle for the truck commander which displays a map of the current area and icons of nearby friendly forces updated in realtime).

  Upon completion of their pre-mission routines and mission briefing delivered by their platoon sergeant, the patrol sends up their ready condition status by trucks and push out to conduct their patrol. They are on schedule as usual.

  As they push through FOB Basrah on their way to the main ECP, they notice it now to be a ghost town. No more bus service running, nobody walking along the sides of the roads and no other vehicles driving by. The inside of the base now appears to match the outside as well, abandoned and empty. There are no Iraqi Army soldiers at the main gate nor are there any protestors and Iraqi civilians like there were before.

  The skyline descends into darkness as the sun falls off into the distance. The soldiers inside the four vehicles proceed to mount their night vision devices to their helmets as the convey rumbles forward with the exception of the drivers.

  Same story for the main interstate outside of the base, empty. The sector they are going to tonight is on the southern outskirts of
the city of Basrah and mainly consists of nothing but open desert and one oil refinery. Some hours go by on their patrol without any incidents. Just your average boring patrol Trevor tells himself as he lights up his tenth cigerette of the convey as hours go by into the darkness.

  Not a single checkpoint in this area or car has been found. For the majority of the patrol, everyone on Trevor’s truck remained silent. Price would call out potential threats to Trevor as they drove by suspicious looking items such as tires on the side of the road and various trash piles, however, meaning very little. Trevor hardly responded half of the time. The squad, with the exception of Gilroy, allowed the days events to get the best of them. Even Ringo being his usual silent stoic self, displays remorse and sadness in his eyes for those soldiers whom he helped take to the aide station earlier.

  None of them realized the gravity of the situation until they actually took the time to talk to those men and move them. Reagal expressed earlier before the patrol that he felt bad and wished he could of offered to bring them back more food when he had the chance. The others, just kept to themselves with their feeling. Trevor was the toughest of them all and just remained in a state of denial with comments such as, “they will be fine” or “just need a bottle of vagisil”. The others, however, took a more grim approach. They viewed their ill comrades as the first shoppers in line at the checkout counter.

  Not much needed to be said at that point tonight. After taking their last and final short halt which lasted only ten minutes, the platoon leader calls Trevor and gives him the order to head back to base. Trevor complies and has his driver pull a U-turn to get back on the main road. Ringo stares at Gilroy who sits right across from him as he sleeps without a care in the world. Ringo thinks to himself how someone can sleep through this and act like nothing is wrong. Ringo decides that he will start hating Gilroy and demonstrate it as much as possible when the opportunity arises.

  Some time goes by until they reach the main clover leaf to the main gate of FOB Basrah. They push through the main gate which still appeared to be empty. Trevor grows angrier by the second as to why no American forces have secured these gates and begins to ramble below his breath.

  None of his soldiers pay any attention and remain silent. Once they entered the second gate known as ECP Ritz which is the main entry to FOB Basrah, Trevor veers off to the right leading the convey through a series of narrow T-walls which turns into a fenceline. Once all the trucks are in and close together they stop and open up their doors to hop out and clear their weapons in the clearing barrels of any chambered ammunition, a standard procedure performed by American forces upon entering any base after a mission.

  Gilroy and members of the squad hop out the back while the TC and driver side doors slowly open. The soldiers line up along the clearing barrels and begin dropping their magazines and pulling back their charging handles to catch their chambered round as it flies out their rifles. Gilroy is one of the last in line and impatiently waits for his turn while rolling his eyes.

  By the time he is able to walk up to the barrel to clear his rifle, just about all the soldiers are mounted back up on their trucks as he is the last one left to go through the standard clearing procedure. Gilroy quickly walks up to the clearing barrel and begins the process. As soon as he drops his magazine, Gilroy is suddenly startled by a person’s arm which shoots through one of the gaps in the dark fenceline trying to grab him frantically.

  Gilroy’s eyes snap wide open in horror as he takes a few steps back in shock. The man on the other side, which can barely be seen due to the darkness of the fenceline, appears to be growling and hissing at him. Pain stricken moans were also emitted from the man. Gilroy proceeds to look around to see if anyone is bearing witness to what he sees, only to find himself alone at this point. Still in shock, he decides to remain silent and take a step forward to the clearing barrel. He finishes clearing his weapon and hops back on the back of the truck while continueing to glance back at the arm through the fence which tried to grab him only seconds prior.

  Upon entering the back of the truck and taking his seat, Gilroy goes to strap on his headset so he can inform his squad members of what just happened to him. Upon fastening the head strip and flicking his headset switch on, members of his squad including Hunter begin yelling at him and telling him he needs to hurry up.

  “Man Gilroy, you move like you think, SLOW!” an aggravated and eager to get back Hunter exclaimed.

  Gilroy pretty much ignores all the insults and yelling. He proceeds to address his squad leader with a sense of urgency.

  “Hey Sergeant Wilcott, a man outside the fenceline reached through and tried to grab me while I was clearing my weapon,” a still shaken up Gilroy informs.

  Everyone on the truck falls silent in confusion.

  “What?” asks Trevor.

  Gilroy repeats the statement once more for Trevor. A few moments of silent occurs while Trevor ponders a response.

  “Damn boy, he must thought you were cute or something,” jokes Trevor as he tries to play off the incident.

  A few soldiers on the truck begin to laugh. Hunter makes a follow up comment.

  “He must of thought you were cute in that retarded sort of way. Kind of like a small puppy who isn’t potty trained yet,” Hunter says over the headset. The rest of the soldiers on the truck begin cracking jokes at Gilroy while some told him that they think he over reacted or exageratted the situation some how. Price up in the turret was the only one who remained silent. Gilroy stays silent while placing his head down in shame.

  As the convey rolls back to their secured area of the base, they scurry a long winding dirt trail which is about a fifty yards away from the perimeter fenceline. A secondary concrete road is between them and the fenceline which soldiers use to run on in the morning. As they push through, Price decides to make a comment over the headset after staying silent for awhile.

  “Hey guys, looks like that wasn’t the only person who thought Gilroy was cute,” Price states with a sense of urgency.

  Trevor, now confused, asks his gunner what he meant by that statement.

  “Look off to the three o’clock along the fenceline,” Price responds with concern. Trevor slightly leans forward a bit and looks out his semi-shattered TC side window in the direction Price told him to look. Trevor witnesses the entire fenceline for as far as the eye can see shaking in a wave like pattern. He can also spot mobs of people on the other side through the evenly spaced out pockets of light which scurries the fenceline. The parts of the fence which have no light, nobody can be seen on the other side. However, it is apparent that there are people there due to the movement of the fence as it stretches out for miles.

  It doesn’t look like that fence will hold out for long Trevor tells himself as he lights up another Miami cigerette to better soak in the situation at hand. After some much needed silence and observation, Trevor decides to comment in order to calm his men down.

  “Damn protestors man. They better not call us out there to quell it. I need my Desperate Housewives time,” Trevor jokingly states.

  Nobody on the truck responds or laughs at his joke.

  “You guys believe me now?” Gilroy sarcastically states.

  Everyone in the back remains silent while trying to peak out the plexi glass to observe the commotion outside.

  “Ah, screw them,” Ringo calmly comments as he makes no attempt to look. Remaining stoic and calm as usual in his seat. Everyone on the truck remains silent the entire time once upon returning to their camp inside the base. Upon entering, they couldn’t re-fuel the trucks because the fuelers didn’t work that late. They would have to do it at nine o’clock in the morning. Once they park their trucks on line, the crew proceeds to clean out the back for any trash left behind. Also, communication systems are powered down and the machine gun up top brought down by the gunner and locked inside the truck after turning off all power as was standard procedure. Once everything was good to go, the soldiers walked back to their tent to go on
about their business.

  On the way back to the tent, Reagal reminded his Team Leader, Sergeant Muniz of the poker game him and the guys were supposed to play tonight across from Trevor’s living area where Christopher sleeps. Christopher tells them to be in his hooch after they eat dinner chow. Everyone in the squad decided to throw down in the pot except Trevor and Gilroy. Gilroy retreats back to his living area and hides inside his computer. Normally watching movies or surfing facebook to take his mind off the place he is in and what recently just startled him.

  Trevor decides to lay down in his bed with a poncho liner drapping down his bunk giving him some much needed privacy while watching his favorite show with his laptop sitting on his chest.

  A few hours into the various episodes of Desperate Housewives, Trevor is only one episode away from the first season finale. He knows a man of his caliber shouldn’t be watching a show like this, however, he can not seem to take his eyes off it. He is mainly hooked for unknown reasons he always tells himself.

  Throughout the show, Trevor could hear Christopher and the rest of the squad across the hallway yelling and joking around in their card game. From what Trevor over hears, it seems that Ringo is winning so far. That seems about right because nobody can ever tell whether or not Ringo is lieing or telling the truth.

  As Trevor watches on, comfortable and warm in his bunk, he notices through his poncho liner the outline of a person walk into his living area. He quickly removes his headphones and lifts up his bunk divider.

  “Who is it?” an annoyed Trevor asks while looking up to identify the person’s face.

  It appears to be Gilroy standing over him looking confused.

  “Hey Sergeant, I was just wondering what was going on for tomorrow,” Gilroy nervously asks Trevor. Trevor shakes his head in dissapointment. “Damnit boy. That’s what you have a team leader for. He didn’t put any information out to you yet?” a now irritated Trevor asks.