by John O'Brien
“You have the left, I’ll take the right. We both have the lummox in back. Wait for my call,” I say.
Our VOX allows us to talk without pressing the mic button and therefore doesn’t require any movement. The third person is partially hidden behind his buddies and us both taking the shot subsequently will increase the chances he will go down quickly after. It really depends on how the bodies of the two in front fall. I know we’re pretty well hidden but the one in front does have a flashlight, which he is holding haphazardly, and the beam is shining only a little ways in front of the group. They don’t really need it in the hall so he isn’t using it to light their way. If he does bring it up, we’ll be right in its path.
They walk on having snippets of conversation between them. Their boots striking the floor echoes off the concrete walls of the corridor. I feel my heart but control my breathing keeping my sight directly on the center of the man on the right’s chest. Greg’s beam holds steady. They have no idea what they are strolling toward. The flashlight beam begins to rise toward the door between Greg and me.
“Now,” I whisper putting tension on the trigger.
Two muffled barks join the echo of the steps in the hall. Our darkened corner erupts with two simultaneous flashes of light. Two sub-sonic rounds fly out from the once dark corners and converge quickly with their intended targets. The bullets enter each man’s chest and rip into the softer interior of their chest cavities, tearing through tissue and destroying veins and arteries. The pulverized rounds exit from different locations in their backs creating large exit wounds through which blood and pieces of organs spew outward. Each man is launched backward with a grunt and hits the ground with a thud. The flashlight spins upward in the air turning end over end. The third man looks at the man on his left, who was suddenly launched behind him to the ground, with a ‘What the fuck’ expression. He begins to turn to the other one when his head absorbs two rounds that sped outward shortly after the first two began their journey.
His face disappears behind a mist of blood. The two rounds do their extensive damage completely removing the back and side of his head. Blood, tissue, and bone shower the air behind him. He stands for a moment with his body disbelieving the fact that it is already dead and falls to the side. I am immediately on my feet rushing toward the downed bodies.
“You have the door. I’ve got these,” I say walking quickly toward the downed men with the barrel of my M-4 shifting minutely covering each of them.
One man on the left groans and attempts to roll over. I fire into his slightly raised head splattering the insides of it across the once clean floor. The spray makes a long pattern of a red, chunky mass across the linoleum. He immediately stops moving.
“Door’s clear,” Greg whispers.
The familiar smell of someone, or all of them, letting loose fills the hall by the bodies mingling with the iron smell of a vast amount of spilt blood. Death hangs over the area. Pools of blood surround the bodies along with red splash patterns on the walls. In all, it’s a mess. There’s no way to clean this up but I feel more of a calm settle knowing our back side is clear. I quickly check each of them for a radio and don’t find one. At least no one will be expecting a call or a response from them. I just really hope these people were actually doing wrong and we didn’t just take out five people just trying to survive, I think looking down at the bodies that were having a conversation just minutes ago.
I’ve done some things in the past I’m not terribly proud of and those moments haunt me from time to time. I don’t tell my stories, especially to my kids, because I’m trying to hide something from anyone. I don’t tell them because I’d rather not remember them myself. There was a lot we did right, but there were some that, looking back, perhaps wasn’t so right. I really wish I could look back and think every mission and everything we did was with us wearing a halo and unfurling our golden wings but that just isn’t true. Some were people who were just trying to do their job and get through another day. They were just at the wrong place at the wrong time and all because we wanted pieces of paper or information. Most of them were really scumbags though. I really hope that’s the case here.
I shake my head pulling back into myself. My game face, while never really leaving, returns. We have a long ways to go and the night has just begun. I begin dragging the bodies one by one toward the far door leaving wide streaks and swaths of blood and gore. Sweating, I load the last body into a laundry basket. There is no way to clean the hall effectively so I leave the streaks and puddles and rejoin Greg.
“Fuck, I’m already tired,” I say.
“Getting old are you?” Greg says with a smile.
“I’ll answer yes if that will make you carry me,” I answer.
He looks me up and down, “I don’t know if I could. You look like you’ve been eating everything that isn’t nailed down.”
“I don’t even have a good comeback to that so I’ll just resort to the old standby. Fuck off,” I say. I hear his chuckle as we swiftly and quietly make our way through the door and to the stairs once again.
“Elderly first,” he says holding the door to the stairs. I slap my ass implying he should kneel down and kiss it.
We step over the body and make our way up the stairs. A top landing leads to a short hall to the right with another security door at the end. Light shines through the small wire mesh window; dim, but brighter than the hall. I edge up to the window and peer through. The door leads to a small control room of some sort which overlooks a large area, and I mean a large area. The small room itself is dark with light coming from the large room. Swiping the key card, the door opens with a metallic click. Opening the door, a sudden loud voice comes from the room below. I freeze.
The voice continues as if orating and not a shout of discovery. I can’t make out the words from here, just that it is talking loudly. I ease into the room in a crouch with Greg right behind easing the door closed. A console of some sort occupies the room away from the door and large windows, again wire mesh, look out. Each side of the room has a door leading to a catwalk that surrounds the entire room below. Other small rooms, like the one we’re in, are situated on each wall with the catwalk connecting each one. The room below isn’t brightly lit but it is well enough to see by. We lift our NVG’s and peek over the edge of the console.
Below us, the room is absolutely vast complete with a jogging track, basketball courts, a place for weights and tables. It looks like this is the prisoners “outside” yard. In the middle of the vast room, a man stands on wooden boxes addressing a large group of about thirty men, the majority armed with AR-15-style weapons. Another group of about ten stands behind the man holding their weapons. While not at the ready, they aren’t relaxed either.
The one thing that catches my attention is another man being held between two others in from of the man orating. The held man has his head hanging down and it appears he is being held upright by the two men at his side. Another man stands in front of the one being held staring up at the orator. All in all it doesn’t look like anything pretty is happening down there.
“Shall we hear what he has to say?” I ask nodding toward one of the doors.
“My curiosity is peaked,” Greg answers.
I open the door that is on the other side of the group of people below us. Luckily the door opens inward or it would be easy for the movement to catch the eye of the man on the makeshift podium and those behind him. Lowering ourselves to the ground, Greg and I crawl side by side onto the catwalk, holding the door open with our legs. The man’s voice takes on actual words.
“…you standing here are the chosen ones. You are pure because you answered the call and joined right away. Only you, therefore, are clean and pure. The others must be cleansed and purified. God has spoken to me. I know my destiny and act as his obedient servant. The time of the cleansing is upon us,” he shouts across the crowd raising his arms. Lying on the grating of the catwalk, Greg and I look at each other with raised eyebrows.
&n
bsp; “You only need to look at the others who run in the night to know this for truth. They fear the light of the day and God’s wrath. They have been cursed and their uncleanliness shown. The world was long coming to this moment and it’s up to us to keep the faith and clean the world of its impurities. God has set each of us here for this task. I will lead you to the true heaven on earth,” he continues. There is general cheering from the crowd.
“I count twenty-eight in the crowd, ten behind the man, and three around the man in front plus him,” Greg whispers.
“That’s what I have,” I respond. “And not one is female.”
“But, brothers, we also have unclean ones who walk in the day. They are no less cursed than the ones who roam the night. God called you here at the beginning so we can tell the clean from the cursed. Do you repent and seek to be purified?” The orating man shouts and points a finger at the one being held in front of him.
The man doesn’t answer but continues to hold his head down. The man on the podium nods to the one in front of the held man. I hear the sound of his fist connecting with a cheek from up here. The held man’s head rocks and he slumps even further
“You will be purified regardless but to truly be clean, you must submit,” the man on the boxes says but this time without shouting.
There is movement to the side of the group and a woman is brought forward held between two other men. Seeing the bloodied man, she wails. She begins to thrash trying to shake off the hands holding her but it does no good.
“To submit and be clean, you must willingly turn your wife over to us,” the speaker says pointing to the woman being held.
The man raises his head for the first time. New and old blood mingles on his face from his nose and mouth. One eye is nearly shut. He looks out to the crowd and then over to his wife, angling his head to see through his good eye. The woman screams again.
“Never,” the man says. The word coming out of the man’s bloodied and swollen mouth is slurred but very clear.
“We’ll take her anyway but this is for your own soul. Submit and be cleansed,” the speaking man shouts. The others in the crowd are watching this unfold with an eager intensity. Any worried feelings I had about taking the others down quickly vanish.
“Chris. Do it. Pleeeeeease,” the woman implores. The man shakes his head and looks back to the ground at his feet.
The speaking man nods again and the bloodied man’s shirt is cut from his back. Reaching beside the boxes, the one who belted him before retrieves a whip.
“This is all kinds of fucked up,” Greg states.
“Yeah, you have that right,” I reply watching the scene below.
My mind is furiously working on scenarios to take care of things before they get uglier but I have yet to come up with something that will be effective. There are over forty armed men below us and two of us. If the men were separated or we could get at them in smaller groups, then there are a hundred things we could do. Greg and I have two grenades apiece and four grenades would pretty much clear the room seeing they are gathered but that would also mean the man and woman would be taken out so the point becomes rather moot.
“That man deserves to be saved,” Greg says. “As does the woman.”
“I know,” I reply.
“What’s the plan? What are we going to do?” Greg asks.
“Nothing,” I reply with a sigh.
I hate saying those words. A feeling of hopelessness sinks inside me knowing there isn’t much we can do right now. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be doing anything. My jaw clenches and I feel my teeth grind. I would like nothing more right now than to wrap my hands around the jerk spilling hot air from the boxes. Make it slow.
“We’re just going to let this happen?” Greg asks incredulously.
I look Greg directly in the eye. “Yes, we are. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit but that’s what we’re going to do. If we do something now we’ll either take out those two in the process or we’ll go down which won’t help anyone.”
Greg holds my eye for a moment. I sense a deep anger within him that matches my own. He releases the air held in his lungs with a deep sigh. “You’re right. I’ve been wracking my brains and can’t come up with anything that doesn’t include going Rambo and those two not making it through. But those fuckers are going to pay.”
“That they are and we’re carrying their bill,” I reply.
Greg is not someone I would not want to mess with. With his large, muscular frame, he looks like he could rip your arms out of their sockets without much effort. His dark eyes, mimicking his dark skin, narrow and he nods before turning back to the room below.
The snap of a whip and the man’s scream echoes for what seems an eternity. Just below the threshold of the man’s scream comes the woman’s. She is begging the man to stop. Which man she is yelling at is left to guess. She’s just screaming, “Stop. Please stop.” It makes me sick inside but I feel a cold determination settle. The man’s scream falls silent.
“I’ll submit. I submit. Just please stop,” the woman cries out through her tears.
“You’ll submit alright,” the speaking man says with a smirk. I hear a few chuckles from the larger group. The men behind the one speaking eye the crowd with narrowed eyes. They must be his bodyguards or something. They appear to be looking for any dissension within the crowd.
The whip flies through the air again and snaps against the man’s back. There is no resulting scream this time except from the woman. The man’s legs give out and his body slumps further. The two holding him are now supporting his entire weight. They lower him to the floor with the woman wailing non-stop. She thrashes against those holding her wanting to reach her husband.
“Take him back to his room. You may share the woman,” the preacher says stepping off the boxes and walks across the room to a door to our left.
The entourage of ten men follows in his wake. Two men pick up the man lying on the floor and drag him in the opposite direction. They carry him through a door at the far end. The woman is dragged screaming and thrashing through the side doors the preacher exited. The crowd breaks up and heads into those same doors. The room empties and falls silent. The only evidence that anything took place is small patches of red on the waxed wooden floor where the man was held.
“Again, I say that was majorly fucked up. This place is all kinds of fucked up,” Greg whispers through clenched teeth.
“Agreed. Let’s go get those people out of here,” I say.
“What are you thinking?” Greg asks as we continue lying on the grating looking out over the now empty room.
“Well, they dragged that poor soul through those doors taking him back to his room,” I say nodding at the doors to the right. “The others left through the ones on the left so I’m guessing they keep their rooms separate from the prisoners.”
“Yeah, I noticed that as well. That is with the exception of that woman,” Greg comments.
“So we get those we can to a safe place and see,” I say.
The two men who dragged the either dead or unconscious man emerge from the doors and cross the room. They are casually carrying their carbines and their murmured conversation drifts upward from the room. They disappear through the left hand doors.
“Shall we,” I say after they leave the room below in silence once again.
“Lead on,” Greg replies.
We crawl backward, close the door, and don our goggles. Stepping over the body once again on our way down the stairs, we emerge into the hall. At the double steel doors leading into the humongous room, the hallway branches left and right. We silently step to the corner and peer around. Another security door sits twenty feet down the hall to the right. A similar door sits in the hall on the other side. I move down the hall to the right with Greg keeping an eye on the door behind. A darkened hall stretches away before arcing to the left and vanishing out of sight.
I swipe the card to open the door and we are swiftly through. The corridor is e
mpty without any doors leading off. We creep quietly down the pitch black stretch, seen only in a green glow. We follow the arc around to where it ends with another security door. Light shines through the inset window. I’m not worried about cameras in the darkened areas of the building. They have to be up and running in the lit areas as part of the security system though. Whether they are being watched is something altogether different. The one good and bad thing about having thick walls and so many security doors is sound doesn’t carry far.
At the door, I look quickly inside. I can’t see much due to the restrictive nature of the small window but it appears to be another hall. This must be the hall between the wing buildings and where they dragged the poor bastard. The actual building with the cells, radiating outward like tentacles, must be to the right. If the prisoners are being held there, then I assume there are also guards with them. Even though the cell doors, where I again assume they are being held, must be locked, they would also post guards. That only makes sense.
The images of the scene in the large room flash through my mind. I feel a deep, cold anger settle. I cannot fathom the reason people can be so cruel when the rules are lifted. Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, the line trickles through my head. Not today. Today it walks on two legs and will be delivered by a messenger of steel, I think nodding at Greg as we get ready to enter the lit hall.
I ease the door open after hearing the click and seeing the green light. Peeking quickly in both directions with the mirror, I withdraw it and ease the door closed.
“Hallway with a security door at either end. There’s a camera mounted above the door on the right. We’ll have to move fast. There is most likely a small room with other security doors that allow only one to be open at a time. There may be a security station set up off that room that overlooks a larger congregation area,” I say.
“How do you know that?” Greg asks.
