“Did you see him rock his wings?” Sergeant Korta was the first to regain his voice. Rocking your wings at the tower was the universal signal for radio out.
“What wings?” Sergeant Silvers stared in rapt attention at the rapidly dwindling light. “I didn’t even see an airplane, much less wings. All I saw was that big damn light.”
Airman Couch nodded his head in mute agreement.
Davey shrugged.
“That’s what I saw too. But I thought I was just getting old. I wanted corroboration from you juvenile delinquents.”
Suddenly several speakers went off at once. The security police all wanted to know what was going on. The fire department, always stationed near the runway, was asking what it was, too. And the speaker in the middle of the console squawked to life.
“Okay, Davey, I give up. What the hell was that?”
“Lyle, didn’t anyone ever teach you not to swear over the radio?” answered Davey. Then a thought hit him.
“Lyle, what direction were you filed to fly tonight?”
“South” came the terse reply.
“Do me a big favor if you’re up to it. Follow our visitor and see what you can make of him.” The senior controller glanced around the cab. “We have conflicting opinions about his make and model.”
“Yeah, right, make and model. Well, pass my intentions to approach and clear me for an immediate takeoff. Oh, and one more thing you can do for me, Davey.”
“What’s that, Lyle?”
“Have the shrink waiting to meet me when I get back. I need to have my head examined.”
Davey Korta chuckled at his friend’s request. He called down to the approach controllers to let them know what Sergeant Dennis would be doing. The other controllers had answered the rash of radio calls with the verbal equivalent of a shrug, a time-honored military tradition. The consensus of opinion from the ramp tramps was that they were mad at the tower for confusing them. Slowly the flashing red lights departed from the taxiways.
The big reciprocal engine on the T-6 Texan spun the big silver prop to life, and Sergeant Dennis taxied the old yellow trainer to the end of the runway.
“Texan 65 papa, requests clearance for an immediate takeoff.”
“Sixty-five papa, wind calm, cleared for takeoff, runway one-two.” Sergeant Korta thought for a moment, then keyed the mike again.
“Be careful out there, Lyle.”
“Sixty-five papa roger. You got that right, Hoss. I intend to cover my rosy red with both hands.”
The subdued tower crew watched until the aircraft disappeared into the velvet blackness south of the base. Now all they could do was wait.
Time and the night dragged with infinite slowness. Suddenly, finally, the silence of the tower cab was interrupted.
“DM tower, this is Texan 65 papa, request clearance for a straight-in runway 30.”
“Lyle… er 65 papa, wind calm, cleared to land.” Davey grabbed the mike and transmitted before the other two could move.
“What happened, 65 papa?”
“I’ll tell you in person. I don’t want this to go down on tape for posterity.”
The tower crew could barely wait while the pilot landed the big, yellow trainer and taxied it to parking. They watched him jump out of the plane and walk toward the tower.
The questions started the minute the elevator doors opened.
“What happened?”
“Did you get a good look at the spook?”
“What kind of plane was it.”
“Hold it, hold it,” Lyle Dennis waved the questioners to silence.
“Let me tell it from the beginning. That way maybe I’ll figure it out myself.”
The tall master sergeant grabbed a cup of coffee and leaned into his tale. He told how he got airborne, and poured the coals to the old trainer, expecting a long chase to catch up with the mystery plane. He flew down a darkened valley and crested a ridge at the end. As he climbed over the ridge, he was almost blinded by the lights of the other aircraft. It was as if it had been killing time, waiting for him. He throttled back on the power and approached it slowly. It matched his speed and stayed the same distance in front of his craft. When he accelerated, it accelerated. When he slowed, it slowed. It was like a cat-and-mouse game, but Lyle didn’t know which one he was supposed to be.
He followed it for several minutes, intent on getting a closer look. He wanted to at least identify the type of aircraft. To him it still looked like a big landing light with no airplane attached.
Suddenly the light seemed to grow in the windscreen. Lyle realized that the craft had come to almost a complete stop. That was impossible. They had been sailing over the desert at better than 130 knots. Now the other was stopped without even a slowdown coast.
“I glanced around trying to figure out what to do. I had lo slam it into a forty-five-degree bank to keep from flying right up his tail pipe. Then I noticed that there weren’t any lights on the ground anywhere. That SOB had led me out into the wilderness and now it wanted to play.
“I lost him in the bank and figured 1 was going to live. All of a sudden there he was right next to me, pacing me in wingtip formation. I could have almost reached out and touched him.”
“What did you do then, Sergeant Dennis?” Airman Couch was listening to the narrative with his eyes so wide they looked like they were about to drop out.
“I did what any hero-type pilot would do. I shoved the throttle to the wall, closed my eyes, and screamed all the way home. It’s a wonder I didn’t run into a mountain or something.”
“What happened to the other aircraft?” asked Sergeant Silvers.
“I never saw him again, thank God. I hope I never do.”
“Lyle, what did he look like?” Davey was contemplating the unknown with disbelief around the corners of his eyes. “Did it have any markings? Was it military? What did the wings look like? What did the tail look like?“
“Davey, old buddy, if you forget I ever mentioned it, I’ll tell you. As far as I could tell, it didn’t have any markings. And it didn’t have any tail. And as far as I could tell it didn’t have any wings. In fact it only had one thing that I’m sure of.”
Davey regarded his friend.
“What was that?”
“It had windows. Lots of windows. And if I was to think about it real hard, which I didn’t intend to do, I would have to say that there was some kind of eyes behind those windows. Some kind.”
It is the position of the United States Air Force that there is no such thing as flying saucers.
It is the position of Senior Master Sergeant David L. Korta that sometimes the United States Air Force is full of grade A, number one horse hockey!
NEVER SURRENDER
THE military, even more than politics, makes for strange bedfellows. You rarely get the chance to choose even the type of accommodations, much less the people you will share them with. But you learn to adapt. It’s easier because usually your roommates are in the same boat. Usually they’re military too. Usually they’ve had to adapt and accommodate to some different situations. And usually the people with whom you share your living spaces are still among the living… usually.
It all started in upstate New York, in March, on my roof. I was up there in waist-deep snow, trying to chop the ice out of the gutters, when I got this bright idea. I thought, “I’ll bet the South Pacific is nice this time of year.”
Yeah, I know, brilliant. So, anyway, the guys in personnel had been calling around trying to drum up volunteers to go to Guam. I decided to hold up my hand.
Now, I didn’t know how my wife would take the idea of living on an island, what with the kid being so young and all. So I got another brilliant idea. I asked her to help me dig the car out of the garage. We had just had a light, spring snowfall of about two feet of the wet stuff.
After a couple of hours of digging, I sprang the Guam idea on her. She was so ready to get out of the winter wonderland that she almost volunteered without me.
/> Next day, Monday, I called the guy in charge of bomber assignments to ask how soon he can get me to the Pacific.
He said, “Are your bags packed, Captain?”
A real comedian, I thought. But by the end of the week, I had orders in my hand. They were really anxious to get guys over there.
It was the middle of March. The orders were for the first of June. Didn’t give us much time, but you’d be surprised how fast you can move with the proper motivation.
We got the house sold, the furniture packed, the movers came, and we took off to California to visit the family before flying off to paradise.
Unfortunately, while we’re on leave in California, a young lady pays a visit on Guam. A young lady named Pamela. And she really screwed everything up for us.
See, Pamela is this great big, force 5 or something, typhoon, and she hit Guam real hard.
I found out about it when this personnel weenie called to tell me that my orders had been changed.
I could still go but my family would have to wait until I got assigned a base house.
Well, Grandpa and Grandma were overjoyed that my wife and kid were going to stay longer. And my wife was happy because she could go shopping a lot more with my mother in L.A. No one shed a tear when I left to “bach it” on an island that had just gotten modified by disaster.
Anyway I spent about twenty-seven hours in this cattle-car airliner and when I got to the island they stuck me in this motel room with no glass in the windows and a fan with one blade missing. They told me they’d get me a house when they got enough of them cleaned up. Most of the houses were still standing, all right. But they were a mess. See, the builders figured that it’s easier to dry a house out than build a new one. So they built them to let the wind and water go right on through. No kidding. Some of them even had drains in the middle of the floors.
So, anyway, I spent the next couple of weeks getting settled in the squadron and haunting the housing office every spare minute. Finally, I asked one of the women if I could at least look at a house to see what they’re like.
She handed me this key to a place and told me not to expect too much ’cause they hadn’t gotten around to cleaning or painting it.
I went to see it expecting the worst. But it turned out to be halfway decent. Oh, it smelled a little wet and the government furniture was trashed. But it wasn’t too bad.
The backyard was different. It butted up to this big hole. Sort of like a two- or three-acre canyon.
The neighbor guy said it was a natural depression that the Air Force decided to use as a drainage ditch for things like typhoons.
He said that during the storm it filled up because some garbage blocked the drain. Some idiot swam out to try and clear it out. He must have done a good job because it emptied out real fast. But the guy got sucked right down with the water and they never found him.
He also told me that the house I was looking at was one of the least damaged. His place right next door got wasted. I guess typhoons are funny kinds of storms.
So, anyway, I went back to the lady at housing and told her that I’d take the place. She said, “Yeah, right. It’d be a month before CE could get to it.”
And I told her that I’d take it just the way it was if they’d throw in some new furniture.
And she said what about the repairs?
And I told her, “No sweat, I’m handy.” So I lied. So what. It got me a home.
That night I called the wife back in California and told her how lucky we were and that she could call the travel office and arrange for her and the kid to come to Guam.
She asked about the house. She said she ran into a friend who had been stationed on Guam who told her about the houses. She said to be sure to get a Capeheart model because they have these neat lanais.
I told her I didn’t know about lanais but this house had a kind of an indoor patio that was separated from the living room by glass doors.
She got all excited and told me that that was a lanai. So now I knew what a lanai was.
I went back to the motel next day and picked up my junk and moved into the new place. I figured anything was better than that dump. All I had was my baggage and some ruined furniture, but I could rough it.
It was funny. The stuff in the house got soaked but the patio furniture on the lanai didn’t seem to be wet at all. Now the weather on Guam is so good it’s almost boring. It’s like seventy-five to eighty-five degrees every day of the year and it rains warm water. So I figured, what the hell, I could sleep on the lanai. Sure wouldn’t have to worry about getting cold. And the old couch out there looked comfortable.
What a night. I kept dreaming I was waiting for somebody and woke up every twenty minutes. And when I woke up there were these glass doors acting like a mirror right in front of my nose. I scared myself about a hundred times. Finally I decided it must be something about the night air, so I dragged the old couch inside and slept like a baby.
Eventually the furniture got there and my family got there and we set up housekeeping for real. My wife just loved the house and she really liked the lanai. She made that her first job, fixing it all up. Made it look real nice and cozy. But it was funny. Right from the start, even though it looked great and was real comfortable, nobody seemed to want to stay out there very long. There was just something about the place.
Finally the kid sort of inherited it by default. Sherry would tell him, “Take your toys and play out on the lanai.” So he would. He started out with all his toys—his cowboys and Indians, his trucks and cars, his spacemen. But before long all he seemed to want to play with was his army stuff. Now, this was kind of embarrassing, me being in the Air Force and all. But the kid was only three years old so no big deal. He even made up an imaginary friend. Blamed everything on him. I thought it was kind of smart of him.
But he never gave him a name. Just called him “he” or “the army man.” We’d tell him to play with his cars but he’d say, “He doesn’t want to. He just wants to play war.” And it was funny. He was only three but when he was playing army with the army guy it wasn’t like a little kid playing. It was like real serious. Sometimes he’d be playing and then suddenly he’d stop and come in. Said the army man didn’t want to play anymore.
Finally, he quit going out there altogether. Gave Sherry some story about how the army man was sad and didn’t want to play much. Sherry didn’t push it because she started to have a thing about the lanai herself.
See, she’d always had this kind of thing about places. It’s not like she’s some big-deal psychic or anything. But she has feelings. Like when her dad was so sick and she knew he was going to die. Nobody told her anything because she was a little girl. But she knew anyway.
And then every once in a while she’d get these feelings about someone she hadn’t seen in a long time and before you knew it they’d be calling her or writing to her. It was only a little spooky.
After a while she started to encourage J.T. to play out in the back or in his room. She said that the lanai didn’t seem healthy. She wouldn’t explain it because it seemed to embarrass her.
I was pulling a lot of alert by this time so I was gone a lot. Sherry started to really develop a thing about the lanai. She said when she sat in the living room sewing or something it always felt like someone was watching her. Someone out on the lanai. It got so bad that on one of my back-to-back tours she went out and got curtains to cover the lanai windows. Said it made the place brighter. Yeah brighter. It also covered up the lanai so nobody could look in on her.
Then it got real strange. First, my mom came over to visit. No, I don’t mean there’s anything strange about my mom. While she was there, J.T. told her all about the army man. She didn’t know that he was imaginary. She didn’t know too much about the military. She thought he was talking about some real army guy. So one night she was out in the living room while Sherry was giving J.T. a bath. We tend to be pretty loose on a base. Nobody every locks their doors and it’s pretty normal for som
eone to walk into the lanai so that they can knock on the glass door. Couldn’t hear someone knock outside too well.
Anyway, she came and told Sherry that someone was there to see her. Sherry went out but there was nobody. She said, “Where, Mom?” and Mom told her on the lanai. But there was nobody there.
Sherry asked her who it was. Mom said, “I think it was your friend, the army man that J.T. keeps talking about.” Sherry got a chill and just stared at Mom. Mom said, “You know, he had on a tan uniform, not like the one Chuck wears.”
Sherry just said something dumb like “oh,” but she didn’t sleep all that night, thinking about J.T.’s army man.
Finally, one night after Mom left, I came home from a real late flight. It was more like real early ’cause it was three or four o’clock in the morning. I went to open the lanai doors and they were locked. We never lock our doors but this time Sherry or somebody did. So I was stuck out there on the lanai without a key. It was like four in the morning and I didn’t want to wake anybody up. I knew Sherry would be getting up at six so I decided to wait. See, I’d been flying all night and I wasn’t thinking too straight.
So I sat down on the papa-san chair and before you knew it I was dreaming. Or at least I think it was dreaming. It was real strange. It was like I was hearing this story and living it at the same time.
I was on this island but I wasn’t me. But I’m not sure who I was. The island was Guam but most of the buildings were either missing or real strange. I was waiting. I was waiting for something to happen. I kept looking up and seeing these airplanes go over. They were up high so I couldn’t tell what kind they were. For some reason they scared the crap out of me. I kept thinking Saipan, Saipan. But I didn’t know what that meant.
Then all of a sudden the dream got real intense. There were all these explosions and loud bangs. It was like having your head in a bucket with some yo-yo beating on it with a club. It went on and on until I couldn’t hear myself think.
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