The Dark Trail

by Will Mosley

  “Garay. Tanner Michael.” Lee read, then whispered, “Where'd you get that?”

  “That's part of the story that I don't know. I could say that I got it on the streets but I'm not –,”

  “You didn't get that on the streets, Tanner.” Lee unblinkingly stared at the image. “No, sir! You didn't get that thing on the streets. I know that for a fact! That's as military as I've ever seen. I'd bet you a million bucks that the story you feed us is all bunk. You've been fucked with, boy!”

  “Fucked with?” Tanner asked and lowered his shirt.

  “Watch your tongue in my house, son.” He demanded. “I don't know who did it, but when I was in the shit, there were some guys who, for a lack of better words, knew too much. When and if you saw those guys again, they didn't know anything.”

  “Like –,”

  “Like you. Many times they just killed the poor bastards and we never saw them again. I mean, we assumed that someone killed them. I dunno.” A childlike curiosity sparkled in Lee's eyes. “What have you been doing out there?”

  “I don't –,” Tanner scanned the room as if pieces of his life puzzle were scurrying about on the floor, only to hide when his gaze fell on them. His father's theory made some since, but it could not explain Brandi and Greg Hart. “I don't remember any of that.”

  “I know.” Lee Chuckled. “And it's probably better that way.” Tanner lifted his shirt again.

  “Take a picture, dad! Then, take it to someone you know.”

  “Are you out of you mind, son?” Lee asked.

  “Everything alright in there?” Judith asked from another room.

  “Yeah, Jude.”

  “Ken is back so whenever you're ready to get started, we'll be waiting!”

  “Fine, Hon!” Lee said then lowered his voice. “This is some deep, deep shit! I don't want – I can't be part of it. I've got your mother to think about! Whatever you were involved in, if anything, it can get people killed if they find out. God forbid, but they'd probably kill Ken, Mary and Lainy if they knew you were showing this thing all over the place. The government doesn't joke around about their secrets.”

  “I haven't shown anyone.” Tanner said.

  “Good. And don't! This thing,” Lee poked Tanner in his chest. “You can't tell anyone about. Keep this shit under wraps!”

  Tanner, shaken at the idea that someone might have 'fucked' with him, blankly took the fourth camouflage jacket from the bed as Lee found a home for his three. “And this?”

  Lee turned around from the closet. “Huh?”

  “This jacket. You don't believe it's yours? I can keep it?”

  “Tanner, son, it's not mine! You want me take the damned jackets out again and show you?”

  “No, sir. I – I just thought –,”

  “It's yours. You earned it. Wear it with pride.”

  Just before 11pm, on the ride home, not even the slightest light had been shed on what happened in the room at their parents’ house.

  “So what did you and Dad discuss back there?” Ken asked.

  “Not much. Just Dad stuff.” Tanner mumbled.

  “Come on, Tanner? This is me, your brother. Give it to me straight: What'd he say about the money you blew through? Was he pissed? Did he chew your ass?”

  “Yeah,” Tanner stated with the same monotone inflection. “Chewed it right off. Told me he was disappointed.”

  “And that's all?”

  “Sure, Ken. What do you want from me?”

  Ken said nothing for many moments then slammed his palm against the steering wheel, “Dammit! I forgot to tell him about your shooting. I'll call him tomorrow and tell him.”

  Tanner thought, I'm sure he already knows a little something about that.

  At home, Ken lead Tanner down stairs, but not for unselfish reasons – Tanner knew the directions, however Ken needed a drink to ease the unwarranted stress a visit to his parent's house often elicited. This night unlike the last, Tanner felt comfortable enough to ask to take a shower. Ken, sitting at the bar watching Sportscenter, nodded, reminded Tanner where the facilities were and fetched him a razor and one of his clean, white t-shirts, on which he had etched his initials to curtail department theft. The pants issue would only be resolved once Tanner gained weight and could fit into Ken's thirty-six's. Once Ken had seen how the Braves had fared during their spring game, he took a second shot of Bourbon and headed upstairs.

  Once Tanner was clean he dressed in his soiled pants and Ken's t-shirt and stood at the bottom of the stairs listening for movement in the kitchen. When he was sure that Ken was not meandering around snacking on leftovers, he placed the bar stools on the stairs in the same configuration as he'd done the night before. When that was done, he collapsed onto the couch and immediately fell asleep. This night’s sleep came fast and easy and it was unnatural.

  As though he were merely a ball of energy, Tanner floated in a thoughtless void. Suddenly, there was a spectacular flash of light from above that remained constant, but he didn't shy away from it because it was the Sun and he simply knew that. The thought was strange because, as astute and alert as he was in that moment – his nerves quaked within him during waking hours, which was nearly always, only to subside slightly during sleep – having a blindingly hot, bright orb in the sky that meant him no harm was a security blanket. Brightly lit, hot objects were associated with other things that did mean him harm and that knowledge was as innate as his own heartbeat. He was carrying something heavy in his hand, knew what it was and never bothered to look at it. Behind him, in a foreign tongue, someone screamed, “Get down! Get down!” But Tanner didn't get down. Instead, he looked up. In the sky, Lee Garay's expressionless face floated overhead, trailing it was a stream of controlled fire, a jet or missile of some kind. The floating face grew closer and the thing in his hand was yanked from him, dropping to the ground, to the sand. He turned to see why, when a man on the ground behind him grabbed at his pant leg, “Get down, Malik! Hurry!” the unfamiliar man said in an unfamiliar language that Tanner understood clearly. Still, Tanner remained standing, watching Lee's eyes probe him, follow him as the face floated across the sky from right to left, monitoring him, scolding him mentally from behind those ignited hazel eyes. Behind him, shouts of, “Malik, get down! Malik, what are you doing?” puzzled him. Are they talking to me? He asked himself, but knew the answer to that. Of course they were, but why were they calling him 'Malik'?

  The object was back in his hand and he and his group had moved back a few feet. In a dream shift, the moment that had just occurred repeated itself. This time he knew what was coming, but did not dare flinch or drop the object in his hand and launch himself into the sand ahead of everyone else. Instead, he nervously waited for the scream, the tug on his pant leg and the clear visual of impending danger. In the distance he heard the crackling roar of jet propulsion rocketing a projectile toward them, but he waited and no one else seemed to notice. However, there were a few among his crew whom he knew were aware of the same impending danger, yet, they too dared not flinch and jump early. They all waited patiently, not able to see pat the future explosion, not able to know which one of them would be killed, if any, that would occur in a matter of moments once the projectile was over head.

  The object was snatched from his hand and like clockwork, Amir grabbed his pant leg. “Get down, Malik! Hurry.” Amir screamed. He turned back and saw Amir covering the back of his head with his hands, his face shoved into the sand, then looked up at the men who remained standing. All of them, as if on cue, nodded their heads. One man in the back of the group pointed to Amir, then, with his thumb sticking out from a balled fist, made a slashing motion across his neck. Tanner could not see himself nod, but he knew that he had. The remaining men lowered themselves to the ground, covered their heads and the projectile broke the sound barrier, deafening at only 200 feet above them.

  When the object struck, the ground tossed their bodies feet from where they'd lain, and their hands worked only to prevent deafne
ss – the ear piercing explosion seemed as loud as if they'd not covered their ears at all.

  Then, blackness. The void settled on him, but was not as weightless as before. This time, he knew it was from sleep. Sight recovered and hearing regained, popping gunfire like rapidly bursting light bulbs shook him awake. Tanner grabbed his weapon from the ground, knelt, aimed and fired. The overcast darkness – smoke from the missile that struck within a half mile – was noticed first and disregarded. Tracer rounds like streaking flickers from fireflies, whirred in the gray smoke, some from behind, most from ahead, and Tanner fired into the cloud, toward the descending angle of the light streaks, ignorant of what lay beyond. But a hand upon his shoulder calmed him instantly and as if he'd previously seen what was on the other side of the cloud, like he had been there before, he stood, held the weapon at his shoulder and moved forward into the chaos he'd already known.

  The smoke began to fade several steps into his advance, allowing dim sunlight to hide the oncoming rounds. Ahead, a small village appeared. From the windows of a home on the edge of the village, a white, flowered sheet carelessly swayed in a light breeze. Suddenly, it was lifted away, rifles were thrust from the opening and blind ammunition rained toward him. The sheet dropped, and the dream advanced.

  She was sandy blond with frightened, blue eyes and a pink, young face marred by gray soot. Tears rolled from the corners of her face and splashed on the floor in tiny pools beside her head. Her bottom lip, naked and pale pink, quivered. The name plate on her breast read, Hamilton. Tanner seemed to hover above her, only inches away, with something hard and metallic between his teeth.

  “Kill him, Malik!” A voice behind him shouted in Arabic. His accent, heavy with a Furati dialect, differentiated him. This was Nasir. “We have a deadline!”

  Aside from the complete understanding of who this man was without even a second thought, even over the realization that he was answering to this name 'Malik' in this strange dream, one fact was clear: No one knew that the person under him was a woman. Her helmet concealed her hair, her breasts were virtually flattened by body armor, and without make-up, through the confusion and noise, there was simply no way to tell. But he knew, even before she spoke a word, he knew. Men did not cry the same emotional whimper, and even if they did, her eyes told a different story. Killing her would save her... from them.

  Tanner, balancing on one arm, reached up and pulled the knife from his teeth, then screamed, “You will leave my country, or you will die!” The words that came from his mouth were strange, yet, Arabic, and he understood every word he had spoken in the dream.

  “I – I don't know what you're –,” She uttered in a whisper.

  “Shut up!” Tanner screamed again. “You bring your weapons and your soldiers and your killing to my land! My homeland!” He took the twelve inch blade and shoved it under the American flag on the shoulder of her uniform. She winced and let out a yelp. With one quick yank, he sliced the flag in half, maintaining a piece of it between his thumb and the knife blade. Then, he retrieved it and spit on it. “All for this?”

  Chapter 20.

  Ken opened his eyes onto the alarm clock next to his bed. The time was 4:16am.

  The sudden arousal was startling because he had no desire to pee – though the urge had suddenly begun to grow – and he wasn't hungry, but he was awake. He pressed the alarm button on the clock simply to make sure it was still set for 7:30 am.

  With his head still dizzy from sleep and the room still filled with the darkness of the night, he sat up and slid his feet into his slippers. Ken stood up and stretched beside the bed, listening to Mary's breathing – easy and relaxed – under the breathing of something else, something manic. Ken froze in his stretch. Something was behind him and his acute senses measured the breathing to be close, at his neck, on him, but that was impossible because the bed was behind him. An intruder. Through his mind emerged an image of a darkened man in a trench coat and a black fedora. I've awakened to an intruder and caught him in the act!

  Ken lowered his arms slowly, but didn't reach for his sidearm which lay next to the alarm clock, loaded and cocked, because he didn't know if the intruder had yet noticed him. He turned slowly, raising his hands throughout the motion, his feet soundlessly stepping into position.

  The darkness inhibited his sight. The bedroom door was closed and a sliver of light from downstairs slid underneath, the bathroom door was closed and no light shone under that door either, but on the bed –

  Ken snatched his sidearm from the side table and swung it towards the bed in one motion. Tremors shook his hands, something that had never happened in the three times during regular duty in which he'd drawn his weapon, but his wife's life had never been weighed by his judgment, by his accuracy. His finger depressed the safety mechanism of the Glock, he tugged the trigger, resolute that his bullets would pass through the wraithlike figure straddling Mary with the kitchen knife between its teeth, and leave her unharmed. Then, a moment before he fully engaged the trigger, he noticed the t-shirt that the intruder was wearing bore the initials KLG on the sleeve.

  As Ken steadied his hands to keep the gun trained on the attacker, the fog of sleep faded into confusion as he studied the man wearing the loose fitting shirt that bore his initials. A second later he lowered his gun, “What the hell is going on?” he said.

  Suddenly the man snatched the knife from his mouth and shouted loudly in a foreign language, then sliced a piece of fabric from Mary's shoulder and shouted again. Mary's eyes bolted open and onto the face of her brother-in-law. Not in his eyes, however, because they were closed.

  “Ken,” Mary's tremulous voice whispered, not able to see the knife being held at her arm. “Ken, where are you?”

  Ken said nothing. Suddenly, Tanner spit on the cloth he'd cut from Mary's pajamas and angled the knife at her face, lowering himself so that his lips brushed the edge of her ear. Then, his language changed and he imparted a whisper that chilled her blood.

  “I am American. Either I kill you now, or they rape and torture you. I'm so sorry for this choice.”

  “Ken, help!” The scream erupted from Mary, her legs flailed, arms swinging wildly, the sheets mangled and tossed as if she were a trapped ghost.

  Ken trained his Glock on his brother. “Tanner! What the hell are you doing?”

  Tanner opened his eyes and dropped the knife, the serrated blade inadvertently sliced an ink pen thin red line on Mary's cheek as she rolled towards Ken's side of the bed. Tanner rose up and blinked rapidly, frantically searched the bed with his eyes as though he'd dropped a diamond.

  “Tanner wake up!” Ken yelled. Mary, scrambling off the bed towards her husband, wound her leg up and kicked Tanner in his side, then she fell at Ken's feet. Tanner, clutching his hip, tumbled off the other side of the bed. “Mary, what's going on?”

  “Ken,” Tanner said. “What – why am I in here?”

  “He stabbed me, Ken!” Mary yelled, grasping her cheek and frantically checking her hands for blood.

  At the bedroom door, Lainy screamed and banged, “Mommy! Mommy!”

  “Tanner?” Mary asked. “Why is he in here?”

  “You alright?” Ken asked, helping Mary from the floor. Tanner hid on the side of the bed, peering over with only his eyes showing.

  “Ken, I don't know why I'm in here, but it's just me! Please don't shoot! I'll open the door for Lainy!”

  Ken looked at his gun as if it were some demon that possessed him and laid it back on the side table. Tanner stood slowly, hands raised, flicked on the light switch, then unlocked and opened the door for Lainy. The little girl ran screaming through the room and into her mother's arms.

  “What's going on here?” Mary asked, looking between Ken and Tanner who exchanged a questioning gaze.

  No one answered Mary for several seconds. Lainy sniffled with her head tucked into Mary's shoulder, then Tanner lowered his hands, chuckled awkwardly and asked, “Ken, what am I doing in your room?”

  Predawn b
reakfast was coffee and two day old, warmed blueberry scones for Tanner and Ken, while Mary fixed herself a bowl of Raisin Bran soon after putting Lainy back to sleep.

  Ken wolfed down his scones and followed it with two, long sips of coffee, then he asked Tanner, “Are you okay?” knowing that the phrase was acceptable to Mary and only second in her mind behind the phrase, 'You have to leave!' “I mean, really okay?” Ken swirled a finger around his temple.

  Tanner shrugged. “I don't know what to tell you, Ken. I feel okay. I'm sorry, but I don't know for what?”

  “For scaring the crap out of us, is what!” Mary smiled and the bandage on her cheek neared her eye.

  “Of course, guys. And I apologize again for that cut, Mary. I don't know why I would've been in your room with a knife. I mean, seriously, what was I planning to do with that thing? I guess I just thought I was still dreaming.”

  “About murder?” Mary said.

  Curiosity lowered Ken's brow. “Why did you assume someone had brought you to our room? You clearly got there under your own power.”

  “I know.”

  “And asleep!” Mary added.

  “Yeah.” Tanner muttered.

  “Why was that your first instinct?” Ken Continued.

  “I think –,” Tanner search his mind as if thumbing through an empty manila folder where ink stains from missing documents left imprints on the inside flaps. “I think that in my dream I was being carried.” Deflated, Tanner tossed his head back. “Ken, I dunno.”

  “You were saying something to me,” Mary shuddered, recalling the metallic shimmer of the jagged toothed blade just inches away from doing more than a scratch. “But I couldn't understand you.” Tanner shrugged, no longer trying to guess.

  “Do you sleep walk often? Is this something that you've done before?” Ken asked. Tanner sat his coffee cup down and glared quizzically over the table at Ken. Then he slid back in his chair and stood up. “I don't remember doing it before, but I seem to always plan for it. Let me show you something.”