by Naomi Niles
“Jason…it’s not real.”
“That’s easy for you to say!” He flew up out of his chair and kicked me. His foot caught me in the gut.
“No, it’s not.”
“You wanted to go. You told her we…” He was trembling. “You told her that we could save them.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Yeah…” He ducked down and pulled a flask out of his combat boot and took a swig, then threw it on the ground. “It’s too late now, isn’t it?” He sat back down and grabbed his gun.
“Not for you.”
“You don’t get it!” He lunged forward to get down in my face. “It’s all around me. I can see the sand, the heat. I can still smell the shit from those fucking pots they used to throw out.”
“You think I don’t?”
“You didn’t see what I saw.”
I saw the burka. I saw the children who never had a chance at life. They couldn’t even get rid of the fleas and ticks feasting on them, much less rise above the hell they grew up in. They couldn’t read. They couldn’t write. They didn’t even know how to bathe themselves. The Americans had to teach the Afghani forces just so they could stand to be around them, and even then they refused. Those children were lost souls, broken and battered from the time they came out of the womb.
Jason was talking, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. His words drifted away like a dream that I couldn’t remember, and the CO was sitting across from where we were standing at attention. She pushed a manila folder across her desk and opened it.
There was a picture of two men, wearing white headwraps and the long, stained, white robes common to the clergy at that time. I was intrigued by their faces — sunburnt and grimy, covered in acne and dirt.
“These are Abdul and Assaf al-Fulan. They’re brothers. Yesterday, they were caught stealing an Afghani transport vehicle, with nearly a dozen children held captive.”
I could see Jason shake his head out of the corner of my eyes. “Is there something you have to say, Harris?” she barked.
“Sir, no, sir!” He kept his eyes straight and off her.
Jacobs was a woman in a male only division that’d fought a long political battle to keep women out. It showed. “You are to remain at attention. Is that understood, soldier?”
“Sir, yes, sir!’
“Good; these children are located in a classified Taliban base. You are to retrieve them and bring them back for transport to their village. Is that understood?”
“Sir, if I may, sir.” Jason was beet red, strained from the effort it took to control himself.
“You may not. Your orders are clear. Now get out of my office.”
The cold came back, accompanied by the wet, mildew smell of rotting leaves and wood. “I asked you a question?” Jason slammed me in the head with the butt of his gun. When he drew it back, it was stained with blood, and the world was beginning to fade away again.
“This is bullshit!” He kicked his footlocker and whipped around to confront me. I laid back down on the bunk and closed my eyes. “Why did you go?” He was sobbing, back in the lean-to, nursing his flask. “Answer me,” he shrieked and got up to grab his gun again.
“She ordered us. We don’t have a choice,” I was repeating what I told him that night.
“You see it, don’t you? Do you wake up at night screaming? Do you fade in and out? I almost shot somebody on my way here because I thought they were one of those fucking sand monkeys.” He took a long pull from his flask. “And, it won’t stop.”
“It will.” I was losing sight of the lean-to again. I had to stay in the moment. I couldn’t fade out. I opened my eyes wide and caught the stench of his unwashed body. It shocked me back.
“No,” he laughed bitterly, “it won’t.”
“Jacobs said it stopped for her.”
He lunged forward to get in my face, and the smell of the whiskey on his breath poured in. “That’s because she’s a fucking monster.” He stood back up. “She made us go. You remember the way she talked to me in the office. I begged her not to send us in there, and she wouldn’t listen. She threatened to have me court-martialed for fuck’s sakes. How sick is that?”
“It’s the system. It’s how things work.”
“And, you were both puppets to it. God, I can’t believe I tried to let you off. You deserve this as much as she does.”
“Jason…”
“No,” he shuddered. “You don’t know what I saw.” He took a drink and sat back. “The little girl — she must’ve four, maybe five years old. She flew out of the school. Her head…it landed at my feet. She was looking up at me. I knew she was still there, and… I couldn’t help her, Dwayne.” His head fell into his hands as the sobs rolled through them.
“Jason…” He looked up, but he didn’t look at me. I knew where he was, and what he was feeling — the terror of staring down at a mangled corpse, the way their eyes seemed to bore into you, reminding you of all the lives you’d taken. Their spirits were clinging to him, shrieking in his ears when he slept at night, talking to him while he patrolled the forest.
Jason was different. He never left that world. He was too deep. Reality was a dream, and he was still living like he was there. That’s why he didn’t have a house. He preferred to live in a shelter. It was a familiar comfort that he was clinging to from the time before. It was mobile, easily dismantled, and he could cover his tracks if he wanted to leave. That’s why he dressed the way he did, and why he kept his liquor close. Alcohol was the only thing that could calm him down enough to drown out the voices.
“P-p-lease,” he was whimpering. I knew exactly what he was seeing. He was standing in Jacob’s office, and I was outside listening.
“What is wrong with you, Harris?” I could still feel the disdain in her voice.
“They’ll kill them. You know that.”
“There’s a chance that you can save them.”
“It’s too much of a risk.”
“You have your orders. You ship out at fourteen-hundred. Get out.” I ducked my head in. She was pointing at the door staring at him.
He didn’t move. Her eyes went wide, and she started to get up, a clear sign that he had to run, and he did. He cared about those kids, but he wasn’t dumb. She wasn’t going to change her mind. In the military, a CO’s word is literally law.
I followed him back to the dorm, where he was gathering his things. “This ain’t right!”
I got up in his face. “I need to know that you’re not going to do something stupid and get us both killed. With the way you’re acting, I’d have you court-martialed, just to make sure. You’re lucky she’s soft. Now sit down and calm down or else I will put you down.”
He puffed his chest up, his eyes went wide, and he kept his posture, then backed down and laid on his bed. He didn’t say anything until after we made the jump, but I could see the gears grinding in his head the entire time.
He shot up out of his camping chair, with his gun angle towards the ground, his legs bent. He was at the school now, darting to the entrance of the lean-to, then back to where I was laying on the ground.
He pulled out a make-believe grenade, then ran out, wailing at the top of his lungs. I tensed up. I was walking towards the school when this happened. After he threw the grenade, there was a gunshot. I knew it was his, I recognized the weapon, but I didn’t know who he was shooting at or where he aimed. He was going to kill me no matter what, but…
He marched up, his gun in his hand and pressed it to my temple. “Fucking sand monkey,” he reached for the trigger.
“Jason, no!” I screamed. “No! It’s me, Dwayne. You’re not there. You’re here with me. You need to snap out of it. Come on.”
He laughed. “You thought you could get away with trying to kill those poor children?”
“JASON!”
“Shut up!” He slammed me in the spine with the barrel of his gun.
“Ah!”
“You’re gonna die, and I’m gonna
laugh.” He was staring down at me as if he recognized me, but I knew that he didn’t. I knew Jason for what he was now. He was a young, innocent boy in a man’s body that had no business enlisting. He was too pure, and he couldn’t handle it. Now he’d never move past the trauma.
I slammed down on his foot as hard as I could. The gun blast crashed into the wall of the lean-to and sent woodchips and mud flying through air. I felt the bullet rush past me and kept my body as flat as I could.
When the silence fell over us and he sat down on the ground next to me, I looked up at him. He was lucid. “You see what happens?”
“It happened to me, too, but I found out that once I learned to calm myself down, I could stop the visions.”
“Calm down? Oh, that’s rich. How could I possibly be calm when every time I close my eyes, I see that poor girl staring up at me?”
“You think I don’t see those kids? I saw a little girl get blown to pieces by an IED. Do you remember that? You had to drag me out of there screaming. I’m not going around living in a fort and shooting people. What’s your excuse?” I was too angry to care how I talked to him. He was going to kill me anyway. He deserved to hear it.
“Justice.”
“Justice?”
“I know you think you’re better than me. You keep your bed nice and all your things organized just like they tell you, so that makes you a good person — but you’re wrong. A real man does the right thing. I should’ve killed that bitch when I got a chance.”
“Jason, that’s crazy. You can’t get to her.”
“But I can get to her family.”
Realization flashed over me. He wasn’t after the building. He was after Jacobs’ brother. He knew that if he kept sabotaging the building, the office manager would end their contract. I had to admire his resourcefulness, but it was an obvious sign of his insanity. “I see the same things. I see the girl’s head rolling towards me and the children staring at me. I was inside the school.”
“Then you’re a monster because nobody could see the things that we saw and move on.”
“What do you think you’re going to get out of this? You can kill me, her brother — everyone, and they’ll catch you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course, it matters. You’re giving your life up.”
“No, it’s already over. I can’t go back. I’m too far gone. I don’t have anyone. My mother is dead. I don’t know my father, and my brother wants nothing to do with me. All I have are my memories, and they’re never going away. I was ready to kill myself when they told us they were discharging us. I kept my gun under my pillow for a month and told myself every night that I was going to do it, but I never did because I knew I had to make this right. Hurting her became my reason to live.”
“That’s crazy.”
“What’s crazy is living in ignorance. You’re sick, Dwayne.”
“It’s not ignorance. I care about myself enough to find a way to live. You can do that, too. I came here to save you.”
“No.” He stood up and grabbed me under my arms. I felt reality start to fade away, and now I was staring into Gillian’s eyes. We were in bed together, and I was telling her I loved her. I could almost reach out and touch her, and I tried, but my hands were bound, and she was starting to fade away. “No. No. No.” I thrashed around and wrenched myself out of his grip. My face hit the ground. “Please, Jason, I’ll walk away. I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll quit the company.”
“I’m doing what’s right.” His voice was full of determination when he ducked down and grabbed me again so he could pull me onto my knees. Then he pressed the gun to my head.
I remembered hearing from one of the other SEALs that when a man is ready for death, a calm comes over him. He accepts his fate, and even feels a sense of anticipation. He said that the fight just drains out of him, but that wasn’t the way I felt at all.
Panic, like bile, rose up, and I threw my head back. My throat erupted, and my scream echoed through the trees. Gillian was standing against the setting sun, with black tendrils of hair reaching out to kiss the wind, but I couldn’t touch her, and she didn’t want me.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Gillian
I paced around to the front of Dwayne’s house, searching for some sign of him, anything that might tell me where he was. But there was nothing, just dirt, leaves, and weeds. I started back again, this time searching the carport, the laundry room and the backyard, even though I’d already been through the whole thing.
I decided not to leave and to wait for Michael, in case he showed up. It was a dumb idea, and I knew it when I made the decision, but I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving, only to find that he’d come back and I’d missed him.
I hated myself for leaving things the way I did. This was the worst possible time I could’ve chosen to have a personal crisis, and now Dwayne probably thought I never wanted to see him again. I’d never live with myself if he got hurt.
Tears were running down my face, blurring my vision, but I didn’t stop looking. I was growing frantic now, pacing around aimlessly, sobbing and shaking. I didn’t have the energy to keep this up, but I couldn’t stop.
At some point, I’d have to admit that there might be nothing I could do — the sooner the better. If I kept working myself up like this, I’d end up losing it. He probably wasn’t going to come back anyway. Maybe he left because he was so upset about what I did.
That was probably it. He could handle a fight, but I knew that he wouldn’t be able to handle losing me. I saw the way it tore him up when I left, and the way he stared at me when he pulled out, like I was ripping his heart out and stamping it into the dirt.
It was me. This was all my fault. I had pushed him away and now I was running around his backyard like a stalker, trying to hunt down an imagined clue that would lead me to the man I loved. I collapsed against the back wall, and slammed by head against it.
Stupid.
I slammed it again, this time harder.
Stupid.
I did this. I ruined the best chance I had at happiness.
Stupid.
I needed that pain.
Stupid.
I deserved that pain.
Stupid.
I slammed my head again, then again, each time reminding myself of what I’d done until I couldn’t stand to move or even think. He was in trouble, and it was all my fault. I made him promise not to get into harm’s way, but that’s exactly what he did. He must’ve. He probably stopped caring when I left.
I walked around to the side of the house and pulled out my keys. I had to find Dwayne as soon as possible. I was halfway to the carport when I heard the sound tires crunching in the gravel crunching.
It was him. I took off at a run, and stopped when I saw Michael’s car pulling in. “Fuck,” I kicked the gravel and nearly toppled backwards. Jesse was with him.
“What happened?” Michael asked when he got out.
“Nothing. Everything. Dwayne’s screwed.”
“Where is he?” Jesse demanded.
“Probably dead.”
“Start talking.” Jesse stepped up.
I backed up to ease some of the tension. “Somebody was coming to his work to disable the security system. He was trying to catch them.”
“Where does he work?” he asked.
“Adams Tower downtown.”
He turned around, and Michael followed him to get into the car. I jumped in with them. Michael flew out and hit the gas. His reckless driving and the intensity between them combined into a flurry of panic that rolled through me.
“What are you going to do?” I asked Michael.
Jesse pulled a gun out of the glove compartment to check the clip. “Whatever it takes.”
“Pull the address up on your phone,” Michael told him.
“Here,” he showed it to him. “It’s Sixth and Maybelle.”
When we got to the building, we parked into the back lot and ran around to
the front entrance, where a snake-eyed blonde woman was standing at the front desk. “If you don’t get this solved, you’re both out of the job.” She was tearing into an elderly drunk man. He was wearing a gray uniform that had a patch that said Granger Security on it.
“Hey,” Michael stormed up to him.
“What is this?” The woman ran around the desk.
“Back off,” I pushed her aside to confront the man.
“Excuse me?”
“Where’s Dwayne?” I demanded.
“We think he’s in trouble.” Jesse came up behind me.
“What is going on?” The blonde tried to get between us and the desk.
“Listen, botox queen, shut your mouth or tell us where he is.” I got in her face.
She laughed. “Who are you?”
“His girlfriend.”
“He’s gone. He left to investigate a case of vandalism, and if he doesn’t show up soon, he won’t have a job. Now, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” She turned around and grabbed the phone.
“What are you doing?” Michael and Jesse stepped up to her.
“I’m calling the police.”
“Let’s go.” Michael grabbed me by the arm and tried to pull me away.
“But…” The woman was already talking to the police.
“Now.” Jesse turned back before he ran out.
Leaving meant giving up any chance I had of finding him. I knew that she knew something — she had to — but she wasn’t going to tell us, and if I didn’t hurry I was going to be arrested. It took a lot of discipline to turn around and walk away. I couldn’t give up, but what choice did I have? I walked out and followed Michael to the car, then opened the door to get in.
“Hey!” I turned around at the shout. The old man was running up the service ramp, waving his arms wildly. When he stopped in front of me, he hunched over to catch his breath.
“We have to go, Gillian.” Michael started the car. “Hurry up.”
“Just wait.”
“We don’t have time. The police will be here any second.”
“Wait!” I screamed, then turned back to the old man. “You know where he is, don’t you?”
