The Long Night

by Jessica Scott

His heart sank in his chest. The grief, bound until that moment, started to break free from its bonds.

  "Hey—" He cleared his throat. "Just wanted to tell you I love you and that I'm okay. I'll try to call again soon." He hung up, having no idea when he might make the trek across post to make the call again.

  * * *

  He collapsed onto his cot, not bothering to kick off his shower shoes or hang his towel up to dry. He'd regret that tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that, when the stink of mildew transferred to his skin.

  But he didn't have the energy to get up. He kicked the towel onto the edge of the bed and threw his arm over his eyes. They felt gritty and dry. He tried blinking, but nothing brought relief. His eye sockets felt as dry as the desert.

  He fell into sleep. It was a strange sensation, marked by the feeling of his body rising into the air above him. Or maybe he was sinking away from it.

  He wished he had more fucking Ambien.

  He blinked and looked around him. He was in the alley. Hale was to his left, standing still, facing down one of the dark alleys. Lewis was to his right, weapon raised, pointing into the dark.

  Sam frowned. This had to be a dream.

  It was a shitty dream.

  But he lifted his weapon and scanned the sector in front of him, sweeping side to side as they advanced, shoulder to shoulder, down the alley.

  Sam's foot squished into something wet and solid. He stole a glance and immediately wished he hadn't.

  It was a foot, still strapped in a decaying sandal. He shuddered and jumped away from it.

  Neither Hale nor Lewis acknowledged his reaction. Sam breathed in through his mouth, trying to block the smell from the death and decay as they advanced down the alley to the next intersection.

  The squad was behind them. He could hear booted feet sloshing through the water, along with muffled curses.

  The edge of the alley approached. Sam held up his hand, and Lewis halted, taking a knee.

  Sam eased up to the edge of the building. Taking a deep breath, he held it as he inched around the corner, slowly.

  A flash of teeth. The swipe of a claw against his face.

  The putrid stench of death blowing up his nostrils.

  * * *

  Sam bolted upright in his bed, sweat running down his body. He swiped at his forehead, his lungs heaving. His cheek burned as something hot dripped down his face.

  He slid his finger over the spot, and was stunned when his finger came away wet and red.

  He blinked. Panic took hold, squeezing his already struggling lungs.

  He shoved the damp towel out of the way, swaying when he stood. The nightmare still pulsed through his veins and blurred his vision. He stumbled toward his shaving kit and pulled out the cheap mirror.

  His cheek was unmarked. He scowled and turned the mirror to a different angle, looking at his face in the red emergency light. He flicked on the light.

  Nothing.

  He set the mirror down, killed the lights and shuffled back toward his bed.

  Grief leaked out from its bonds. Sam sat awake and let it come.

  19

  The sun rose over the base. Sam stood on the roof of the battalion headquarters, beneath the field of radio antennas, listening to the morning call to prayer. He thought about smoking a cigarette. He hadn't slept. Oh, he'd lain in the dark and listened to the sound of boots crunching on the gravel outside of his trailer, but he hadn't actually succumbed to anything remotely capable of being called sleep.

  His hands shook. He thought about that cigarette again. He'd smoked, once upon a time. He'd never wanted a smoke as bad as he did right then. He wanted to skip the ramp ceremony, but he couldn't. Not with the rest of the platoon showing up—at least everyone who wasn't on guard duty.

  Sam wanted to punch Tick in the throat for refusing to change the duty roster. He and Sam had gone toe to toe, but Tick hadn't budged. Sam’s squad was pulling duty on the southeast guard tower.

  Hale had volunteered to pull guard duty instead of going to the ramp ceremony. He looked like shit. Sam was worried, but short of dragging Hale to the aid station, he couldn’t do much. The only thing he could do was keep an eye on him. And the dead last thing he wanted to do was let Hale head across the base to the guard tower alone.

  Fucking shit, this dilemma sucked balls.

  And when Hale had volunteered, Sam knew it was the wrong decision. Hale, more than anyone, needed to say his final farewells to Lewis. Goddamn Tick for not making this easier.

  "You sure?" Sam had asked.

  "Yeah, I'm good, Sarn't Brown." He'd looked away, his eyes darting toward the darkness. "I just—I'm not ready to say good-bye."

  Hale couldn't say Lewis' name. Sam understood that. He'd said nothing as Hale had slung his weapon across his chest and started off toward the guard tower.

  Sam stood on the roof and felt his skin crawl as the final notes of the call to prayer echoed across the city. He hated that fucking sound. It boiled inside him, simmering with a dark and twisted rage. Prayers to a God that did not exist, an empty stupid gesture. Hatred burned hot and deep inside him, overshadowing the burning sensation on his hand. When was his hand going to stop fucking hurting? He seriously considered taking a lighter and holding it over his hand to see if the sensation was real or imagined.

  Instead he stood, hands clenched by his sides, and tried to find the strength to climb down and go say good-bye to one of his best friends.

  He wished Faith had answered the phone. Maybe if he'd gotten to talk to her, he wouldn't feel so anchorless right now. So lost. Maybe he could have slept instead of lying in the dark, staring at the dust swirling before the faint green lights on the air conditioner.

  The last note from the call to prayer hung on the dawn. Sam took a deep breath, clenching his fists once more. He turned away from the beauty of the sunrise. Away from the red and gold and orange piercing the darkness and driving it away. He didn't want to see something beautiful. He didn't want to see anything good. All the goodness in the world was dead.

  He climbed down, stepping into the shadows and the cool predawn shade. The cold kissed his skin, damp and wet. He pressed his hand to the concrete. The rough surface of the rock bit into his skin and did nothing to alleviate the burning sensation.

  He adjusted his weapon and headed down the hill toward the airfield where the C-130 waited, its back gaping and waiting for its precious cargo.

  The crowd had already formed on the edges of the barriers. Soldiers milled around, talking and bitching and joking. Sam felt out of place until he spotted a couple of familiar faces from his squad. He wove through the bodies and the bullshit toward his team.

  "Sarn't Brown, did you talk to Hale?" Jinx asked, spitting onto the concrete. The blob of liquid nicotine spread like a dark stain.

  Sam nodded. "Yeah."

  "He's having a hard time."

  "I know. I'm going to walk over and check on him after this." He jerked his head toward the waiting aircraft. "Think they got Lewis into the box?"

  Jinx grinned. "Yeah, they probably had to stuff him into it. He'd been getting kind of fat from eating all the ice cream in the chow hall."

  Sam grinned back, drumming his fingers on the butt of his weapon and fought back tears. It felt good to joke. Lewis would want them to. He'd be pissed if he knew they were taking his death seriously and moping around the post. "He'll have all the ice cream he wants now."

  Except that Sam didn’t believe in heaven. But it felt weird to think Lewis was just gone.

  Jinx stuffed his hands into his pockets and scuffed the toe of his boot on the ground. "Yeah. Probably. His mom is going to be pissed."

  Sam said nothing for a long moment. "Yeah."

  He was saved from saying more as a sergeant major started herding them toward the airfield. They slipped through the barriers and lined up. The engines screamed as the jet ramped up for its preflight inspections. The ambulance hadn’t arrived, but their battalion sergeant major had a thing f
or pushing people to hurry up and get where they were going, then making them wait.

  Sam didn't mind. He didn't have anywhere else to be. Not really. He stuffed his patrol cap in his cargo pocket on his thigh and folded his arms over his chest, standing silent, surrounded by brothers and a few sisters from his fellow companies.

  The engines crashed to silence, shutting down abruptly. The sudden shift fell over them like a physical wave. There was a heavy pause before the talking started up again—more actual conversation, less shouting in each other’s ears.

  And then it appeared. Escorted by two gun trucks—one to the front and one to the rear—the woodland green camouflaged ambulance stood out in stark relief against the desert sand around them. Silence rolled over the company of men. Everyone snapped to parade rest while the vehicles maneuvered into place.

  The sergeant major stepped onto the ramp of the aircraft. "Group, atten-tion!"

  As one, the formation snapped to attention. No one looked, but everyone knew the ritual as the honor guard carried the coffins, each covered in the American flag—pinned to it to prevent it from flying off—out of the back of the ambulance and into the back of the waiting aircraft.

  As they walked slowly by, Sam lifted his burning hand in a final salute. His throat closed off. He couldn't think of his friend, his team chief, in that box. Nothing of his friend was left beneath that flag. It was just an honor. A tradition that he had to uphold, no matter how much he wanted to run from the airfield and drown his sorrows in rage.

  Sam didn't run. He didn't drop his salute. His hand burned along with the tears he refused to shed.

  * * *

  He detoured back, turning down the long road by the osmosis pit, which sucked all the bad shit out of the water and turned it back into plain water that would be sprayed on the roads to keep the dust down. Disgusting, when you thought about it, but Sam figured it had to go somewhere. He just hoped some industrious entrepreneur wasn’t out there bottling it for soldiers to drink and selling it back to the Army.

  He rested one hand on the butt of his weapon as he walked, ignoring the pain in his fingers. For the moment, it seemed to have subsided.

  He let his mind drift while he walked, barely hearing the rhythmic crunch of his boots over the dust and gravel as the sounds of the base faded behind him. The guard tower was a short distance away from their sector of the base, but a long walk because of the way the barriers had been set up. Sam walked along the perimeter for nearly four kilometers; in reality, the tower was only a kilometer away if he had been able to walk a straight line.

  The next two guys should have relieved Hale already, and Sam needed some time away from everyone to clear his head. The memory of that flag-draped coffin had burned into his eyes, blocking his vision with blurry red, white and blue.

  He kept walking, because that's what guys like him did. They kept going, stayed strong. Brought their boys home.

  He didn't want to dwell on the fact that he'd just lost another soldier. He couldn't. He kicked a rock in front of him, watching as it skittered over the dust and down the slope away from the path. He turned toward the guard tower, then kicked the bottom rung before climbing up a sketchy-looking ladder made out of two-by-fours and plywood. Not exactly confidence-building. But hey, if his troops could climb it, it couldn't be that bad.

  As it shifted and groaned beneath his weight, Sam made a mental note to get a better ladder. If he survived this climb. Reaching the platform, he adjusted his weapon. His boots scuffed over the dusty wood.

  No one had relieved Hale. He still stood behind the weapons system, his skin pale, his eyes red. He glanced at Sam and there was no hiding the raw grief flooding down the man's cheeks.

  "I can't stop thinking about it," Hale whispered, his voice breaking. "Every time I look down the sight of the weapon, I see Lewis standing there in front of me." He offered a watery grin. "He flipped me off at least twice."

  Sam put his hand on the other man's shoulder. It burned on contact, a quick flash of heat that made him pause. He squeezed Hale's shoulder tight and was shocked to find the other man felt frail, as if he'd lost a dramatic amount of weight almost overnight.

  "I think we're all having a hard time," Sam said.

  Hale stepped away from him. Folded his arms over his chest, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. Sam said nothing, letting the silence hang between them while whatever Hale needed to say took shape.

  "I want to go home, Sarn't Brown," he finally whispered. "Do you know what I'd do to go home?"

  Sam swallowed the lump that blocked his throat. "I can guess."

  Hale looked at him. In a flash, Sam thought he saw Merrick standing there instead of his long-time friend. When he blinked, the vision was gone. Just like Merrick. Just like Lewis.

  "When we were out there…I would have done anything for all of us to make it back." Hale scrubbed his hand over his jaw. "I would have sold my soul just for the chance, the fucking chance to go home to Crystal."

  Sam froze, a thousand pinpricks of ice dancing over his skin. "Don't say stuff like that."

  For a man that didn’t believe in God, that was…that was too much tempting fate. Or some shit.

  "Why not? It's true. I told Merrick as much."

  The cold slithered down Sam's spine. Hale's eyes looked wild.

  "When was the last time you slept?" Sam asked. He'd seen him sleeping. He'd pulled a blanket over him. But had Hale really been asleep? Heaven knew what lack of sleep could do to a mind.

  Hale shrugged. "I guess yesterday."

  "You need to head back. I'll stay here until your relief comes."

  Hale opened his mouth to argue, but Sam cut him off. "This isn't up for debate. Go. And I expect to see your ass in your cot, getting a solid twelve hours of rest. You move your ass before then and I'm dragging it to the mental health docs."

  Hale pursed his lips, his expression sour. "I'm not fucking nuts. I'm pissed. Why aren't you pissed, man? They killed Lewis."

  “I am pissed. And it fucking hurts. But we’ve got to do our goddamned jobs,” Sam nearly shouted. Going off on Hale wasn’t the solution.

  “Don’t give me that politically correct officer bullshit answer.” Hale ripped his helmet off and threw it against the wall. "Do you know what I wanted to fucking do?" he screamed. "I wanted to un-fucking-load on those bastards. Use the main guns and level this fucking city. I wanted to kill everything that fucking moved. Kids. Dogs. Cats. Fucking everything about this place fucking sucks and you're just standing there? Telling me to get some rest? Fucking Lewis is dead." Tears streaked his cheeks, smearing the dust on his face.

  "I know. I got it. I was there, remember?" Sam fought the lump rising in his throat. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. "But this?" He motioned at Hale's agitation. "Go to sleep. The boys need you with your head in the fucking game tomorrow when we roll back out on the next mission." He paused, gripping Hale's shoulders and looking him dead in the eye, hoping to see his team chief still in there. "I need you."

  Hale jerked away. "Don't tell me to go to sleep. Let me go fucking kill something. I want to make someone bleed. Someone needs to pay."

  Sam backed him against the wall, his hands on either side of Hale's neck, holding him steady. "Stop. Right fucking now. Just stop. You're not going to kill anyone. You're going to go get some goddamned sleep and you're going to get your head back in the game." Sam ground his teeth, searching for a way to reach Hale behind the rage and the grief. "We lost Lewis. And it fucking sucks." His voice cracked. "But we've still got to get through this thing. We've still got to get home. I need you in order to do that."

  Hale looked away, his jaw tense and tight. The fight sagged out of him and once again he felt frail. Hollow. "Sure, Sarn't Brown. Whatever you say."

  He left Sam there without another word. The silence stretched out in front of him, over the rooftops of the city a click away. After a quick functions check on the .50-cal, Sam leaned against the low wall, scanning th
e sector of the city that had taken his best friend.

  Hale's words taunted him.

  20

  The sun rose higher in the sky, bringing with it brightness and dust and lung-searing heat. Sweat soaked through Sam’s uniform. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as all the moisture drained from his body and through his skin. He'd figured the guys spelling Hale would be here shortly. “Shortly” had turned into an hour without water, and Sam was deeply regretting his decision to take Hale’s place.

  At least he had MRE cheese and crackers in his pocket if he got really hungry. Even though that cracker was going to be a motherfucker to eat without any water.

  He leaned on the sandbags next to the .50-cal, his hands clasped in front of him, watching a bongo truck in the distance. The Jersey barriers stood in stoic formation, a single line of sentries demarcating the space where Iraq ended and America began. At least, that was what they told themselves. The truth was they were vulnerable. The barriers had been breached, destroying in one massive explosion any sense of safety they'd had on their bases.

  Sam thought it was highly ironic that the people who'd been the safest on the base were now skittish and jumpy. They didn't have any problems sending troopers out to live on unprotected CPs in the middle of the city. No, that plan only sucked when it was their ass on the line.

  He shook his hand when his palm started tingling. He pulled his gloves off and looked at it. He saw no marks on his palm. Nothing visible that made his skin feel like a thousand burning needles were puncturing his skin and massaging his nerve endings with raw fire.

  He turned his hand over, looking at the veins standing out on the back. Nothing there either, but his skin felt like he was holding it over an open flame. And the pain was getting worse as he looked at it. His fingers trembled and spasmed, twitching like an electric current. The fire crawled up his forearm, twisting through his veins. He shook his hand, banging his knuckles against the wood beneath the sandbag. Pain shot through his bones, but the fire still burned.