by Dez Burke
“Get down!” Fred yells, pointing to the floor with his rifle tip. “On the floor. Let me see your hands.”
They don’t understand English, but they know instinctively know what he means. Their wailing only gets louder as they kneel in terror and hold out their empty hands for us to inspect.
Shit!
Do they really think we’re going to shoot a bunch of unarmed women and children? The Marines have been stationed in the area forever and the locals still don’t trust us.
Probably never will.
The scene becomes more chaotic by the minute.
The women are praying loudly. One has a baby who is sweating in the miserable fucking heat and flailing around in his mother’s arms. He’s so wet and slippery, I’m surprised he doesn’t slide right out of her arms. A couple of small children with big, dark eyes are hanging onto their mother’s legs, too terrified to make any noise.
I can’t look at them.
Their scared little faces make my guts twist up inside. The horrible things these children must have already seen.
I don’t think about it. For me to be distracted by any emotion could turn out to be a fatal mistake.
“Hold your fire!” our platoon leader yells. “It’s just women and kids.” He holds up a hand.
We don’t shoot, but we don’t lower our weapons either. Until proven otherwise, they’re still a threat.
“What are they doing here?” I yell back. “The building is unoccupied. They shouldn’t be here.”
There’s no reason for them to be gathered up in a room together. They obviously don’t live in an abandoned building and aren’t carrying goods to sell at the bazaar.
“Why are you here?” I yell to the oldest woman in the group.
I know she doesn’t understand English.
I let loose a string of curse words at her anyway in pure frustration, which isn’t helping the situation. She’s clearly terrified of us. Her weak, watery eyes remind me of my Grandma. The last letter I received from her caregiver told me she was being put into a nursing home. By the time I return to Georgia, she won’t remember who I am. If she dies, her favorite grandson won’t be there for the funeral.
What would my Grandma think if she saw me now? Screaming and cursing at scared old ladies? Would she be disappointed and ashamed? Or would she realize I’m doing the best I can under the circumstances?
I honestly don’t know.
I hate this fucking shit.
I would give my left ball to be back in the green Georgia mountains. Riding my motorcycle on the curvy roads and drinking shots of cheap whiskey with my friends. Or even better, to be between the legs of one of the blonde, big-boobed high school cheerleaders I knew from years ago.
Instead I’m in hell on earth.
Where the low temperature every day is over 100 degrees and the taste of sand never leaves my mouth.
The old lady keeps glancing toward the door. To underestimate her would be a mistake. I’ve made errors like that before and won’t again. Everyone is a threat. She’s watching and waiting.
Something isn’t right.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of a dark-haired young man, no more than twelve or thirteen, step into the doorway of the room. He’s thin and small, wearing tattered clothes and sandals.
I whirl around.
We never leave our backs exposed. Where the fuck are the guys watching the door?
I notice the glint of the gun in his hands as he raises it to fire without fear or hesitation. Fred doesn’t see him because he’s preoccupied with one of the women who is refusing to get down on the ground.
Fuck!
There’s no time to think or second guess my actions.
I open fire, unloading my weapon into the kid.
He crumples to the ground.
“Motherfucker!” the Marine closest to the doorway yells. He takes a step and kicks the gun away from the kid’s body.
One of the women scrambles across the floor and cradles the boy’s head in her lap. She rocks back and forth, holding him and crying.
Is that his mother?
Did she know all along what was going to happen and did nothing to stop it? Maybe she couldn’t.
I’m physically sick.
It takes everything I have in me to swallow down the hot bile coming up in the
back of my throat. I feel like puking up everything I’ve eaten the last three days.
He’s just a kid.
And I’ve killed him.
The insurgents probably didn’t give him a choice. Go in with a gun and take out as many Marines as possible.
Do it or die.
Or they might have threatened his family. His mother or siblings. One way or another, the kid was a goner. The knowledge doesn’t make me feel one bit better.
My heart is pounding so hard and fast it feels like it might explode. Sweat and concrete dust drips into my eyes. The tension has gone sky high in the room. What happens next could mean the difference between life and death for everyone. Any movement could set off a rain of bullets.
Fred shoves the woman he was wrestling with onto the floor and puts the tip of his gun to her head. Whereas a minute before it was a shoving match between them, now she’s dead if she makes a wrong move.
Just another fucking day in Afghanistan.
A hand grabs my arm, catching me by surprise.
I spin around and react. Reaching for the insurgent’s throat, I wrap my big hands around it and squeeze hard.
Shocked green eyes gaze back at me.
It’s a woman.
Kill or be killed, my mind tells me again, and I continue squeezing.
The woman grabs my forearms and tries to pull me loose from her throat. She struggles with me, scratching my skin with her fingernails and gasping for air.
It won’t do her any good. She can fight me with everything she’s got. In the end, I’m much bigger and stronger. I could easily snap this woman’s neck in two with my bare hands.
And I will.
After what went down here today, it will be a justifiable kill. If there is any question, my buddies will back me up, just like I would them.
There is no black and white in Afghanistan. Only lines of gray that we cross every day to keep each other alive.
Something familiar about her frightened eyes slowly registers in my clouded brain and causes me to loosen my grip a tiny bit. The faint scent of her perfume floats into my nostrils.
I inhale deeply. It’s been so long since I’ve smelled a woman.
I close my eyes for a second and drink in the sweet aroma.
She smells of fresh dew on the morning grass and wild honeysuckle growing on the side of country roads.
She smells like home.
Why?
I don’t understand. How can she?
Now I’m confused. I can’t breathe, and I’m struggling to draw in air the same as she is. Still, I can’t turn her loose. Hesitation means death.
My throat is parched from the heat and sand. I’m suffocating to death in this hellhole. A dog barks incessantly way off in the distance.
I’ve never felt so lost and alone.
I struggle to open my eyes so I can finish the task. My team depends on me to do my duty, no matter what.
The beautiful woman I’m holding in my hands is already limp.
She’s gone.
21
Maggie
I tug at Toby’s large hands in a wild panic, trying with all my strength to pull him away from my neck. My windpipe is being squeezed, cutting off the blood flow to my brain. I might as well be trying to snap a beam of steel in two because he isn’t budging an inch.
Fighting him is futile.
His eyes are open and focused on my face, but he’s not seeing me. The dream he’s in is so intense and real that he can’t snap out of it.
I’m a living, breathing part of his nightmare, and he’s become mine.
As terrified as I was during the shooti
ng, it wasn’t anything close to how panicked and scared I am now. I felt safe when Toby was shielding me with his body, protecting my life with his own. Somehow I knew things would be okay as long as I was with him.
Now Toby is going to kill me with his bare hands.
Except it’s not Toby.
It’s someone else.
Or he’s somewhere else.
Far away from reality.
Either way, I’m dead.
I can’t breathe. My vision is narrowing and black spots float in front of my eyes.
Is this how it feels to die?
My last thought is how devastated Toby is going to be when he wakes up and realizes what he’s done. I look straight up into his confused, tormented eyes.
My world goes dark.
22
Toby
I wake up from the nightmare with a jolt, gasping for air.
My brain is in a fog, and I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing. Maggie’s eyes are closed and she’s limp in my hands.
Oh my God! What have I done?
This isn’t a dream. At least not now.
It’s real, and I’ve done something so terrible my brain can’t wrap around the horror of the possibilities. There’s no doubt I’ve hurt Maggie.
Or killed her.
I would never in a million years put my hands on a woman. Southern boys are taught from an early age to treat women with respect. Yet my big hands are circled around her neck.
What the fuck did I do?
All I can remember is a nightmare that felt so real.
Too real.
This can’t be happening.
I shake her shoulders, hoping she has just passed out. How long have I been choking her? Seconds? Minutes? How much time has passed since she took her last breath?
As long as I live, I’ll never forgive myself for this.
How could I?
My life as I know it has just ended with hers.
“Maggie, wake up,” I yell in a panic. Shaking her shoulders, I try to rouse her. “Please God, don’t let her die,” I pray out loud. “I swear, I’ll do anything.”
How many times have I prayed the exact same thing before?
Please don’t let them die…
Only to watch my buddies and even my best friend in the platoon bleed out on the ground right beside me. Why would God listen to me now when he didn’t before?
There’s always a chance. I refuse to give up. I start mentally bargaining with him. Pleading for her life. I swear to clean up my act. To go to church. To cut back on my partying.
I can’t give up on her.
She just came into my life. I saved her life. God wouldn’t be so cruel to take her now before we even had a chance. All these thoughts fly by in a jumbled blur. No more than a few seconds. Suddenly her eyes fly open and she coughs, trying to suck in air.
To live.
I quickly reach an arm around her back and pull her forward into a sitting position.
“Breathe, Maggie,” I urge her frantically. “Just breathe. Slow and steady. I’ve got you.”
I wrap both arms around her, holding her against my chest as if she were a tiny child.
She’s alive.
I didn’t kill her. I’m weak with relief. I’ve been given another opportunity to make this right.
I’m not going to fuck it up again.
23
Maggie
I open my eyes and suck in a deep breath. I’m dizzy and disoriented. Strong arms are wrapped around me, holding me tight. My cheek is pressed against a warm, bare chest. I feel safe until I remember.
Toby tried to kill me.
He’s dangerous and deranged.
I panic and struggle against him, pushing against his chest. He immediately drops his hands and I scramble to the other side of the bed.
“Don’t touch me!” I yell. “I’m warning you.”
I’m breathing hard and trying to assess the situation. Is Toby going to come after me again? To reach the door, I’ll have to run past him. He’s fast and big. There’s no way I can make it if he comes after me.
He’s a killer.
Toby doesn’t say a word or offer any explanation as to what just happened. Instead, he’s sitting there on the bed watching me carefully. His face is filled with utter and complete despair. I’ve never seen so much pain in a man’s eyes. He holds up the palms of his hands slowly to show that he’s not going to hurt me again and tugs the sheet up around his waist to cover up.
“Maggie…,” he whispers quietly, as if he no longer has the right to say my name. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I swear. Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay.”
He starts to move across the bed toward me.
“Stop!” I cry out, holding up a hand. “Stay right there. Don’t come any closer. Please.” I’m physically shaking.
He freezes. “I won’t move,” he says. “I’m awake now, and I promise I’ll never hurt you again. That wasn’t me, Maggie. I’m almost afraid to ask, but I need to know. Exactly what happened here?”
He’s awake and lucid now. His eyes are wide and clear.
“You really don’t know?” I ask.
Toby shakes his head. “No. I can only imagine. I remember going to bed last night and the next thing I know, I woke up with my hands wrapped around your neck.”
“You were having a terrible nightmare,” I say. “I could hear you all the way through the walls into the living room. Muttering in your sleep and thrashing around on the bed. It was freaking Sadie out, so she woke me up whining. I came in here to see what was going on. You seemed very agitated so I tried to wake you up by touching your arm. That’s when you flipped me over, pinned me down on the bed, and started choking me.”
My hands unconsciously rub the painful spots on my neck where his hands were. “I tried to stop you,” I continue, my voice trembling. “To fight back. You’re too strong. I couldn’t breathe and the next thing I knew, I must’ve passed out cold.”
He turns away from me and drops his head in his hands. “I can’t bear to look at you,” he says. “Your neck is covered by bright red marks left by my fingers. It kills me inside to know that I put those there. What kind of a monster am I? I’ve never laid a finger on a woman before and never would. Not if I knew what I was doing.”
We sit there for a minute breathing heavily, with neither one of us saying a word. The incident has shocked and traumatized us both too much to speak.
“We should get you to a hospital,” he finally says. “To make sure you’re okay. Are you in pain? I’ll drive you in my truck. Or if you’re afraid of me, I’ll give you my keys. What am I saying? Or course you’re fucking terrified of me. Either way, you should have a doctor examine your neck. And get an x-ray or something.”
For a moment, I consider going to the emergency room then decide against it. All they would do is quickly separate me from Toby and ask a million questions about what happened. ER workers are trained to spot domestic abuse. If I didn’t look like a victim right now, nobody would.
There’s no way we could show up at the hospital together. The media would be there in minutes, and what a nightmare that would be. There’s nothing they would love more than this story.
The savior turned abuser in twenty-four hours.
How could I explain the incident to anyone when I really don’t know what happened myself? If it came right down to it, would I tell them the truth? Or would I protect Toby?
One look at his devastated face and I know the answer.
“No, I’m too upset to go to a hospital,” I say. “There’s nothing they could do anyway. Except maybe arrest you and cart you off to jail.”
He nods and looks away. “That’s what I deserve. Or far worse for what I did.”
“Did you know it was me you were choking?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer and rubs his bleak eyes with the palms of his hand.
“I know you don’t want to talk about this,” I continue. �
�I understand. But considering you almost killed me, I think you owe me an explanation. Make me understand what happened here. Right now, I’m scared to death of you. Being in the same room with you is freaking me out.”
“I didn’t know it was you,” he answers. “I thought you were the enemy. Like you said, I was having a nightmare. They call them waking nightmares. Or reliving a real-life experience. It’s hard to explain. The nightmares I have are so real. They go on for hours and I can’t wake up. I’ve never had this happen before though.”
“What about when other girls have stayed over?”
“I’ve never let that happen,” he says. “Not since I came back home from Afghanistan. My number one rule is I always sleep alone.” He lets out a rueful laugh. “I had no idea something this bad could happen. Turns out it was for a good reason.”
I’ve read enough about servicemen coming home with PTSD to recognize the symptoms. Toby is a classic case. He’s been adjusting his actions to hide what he’s going through.
“You were basically sleep-walking,” I say. “And perfectly capable of going through the motions of anything you normally might do while technically being asleep. Do these nightmares come often?”
“Often enough.”
“What are they about?”
He starts to say something then stops. “I can’t tell you.” He lets out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. To talk about it brings everything up again. I’m afraid of losing control if I go there. I know I owe you an explanation. Something to make you understand that I’m not a bad person. A reason why I’m capable of doing something as horrendous as throwing a lady down on the bed and choking her.”
His voice breaks and he stops talking. I quietly wait for him to go on at his own pace. He rubs his hands down his face and blows out a long, shuddering breath.
“The truth is, I think I’m a bad person,” he says. “I’ve done terrible things in the call of duty. Every day I live with deep regret for the things I’ve done.”