Blackened Spiral Down

by Pete Altieri

  Out of the corner of his eye, Carlos saw something move in one of the first floor windows of the four-story apartment building to his right. The movement was quick, but everything slowed down to a crawl after that. He heard a loud pop, almost like the sound of a model rocket – like the ones he played with as a kid growing up outside of Boulder, Colorado. This was louder and more powerful, followed by a whooshing sound as a shoulder-mounted RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) made its way toward them. Carlos let out a sharp yell, and he thought one of the privates did as well, but the rocket was upon the Humvee in a matter of moments. Just before it impacted, Carlos noted the intense heat it gave off and the strong odor of sulfur. The armor piercing round went through the captain’s side door like butter, leaving a gaping three-inch hole.

  What followed was sheer chaos. The rocket sizzled through the Humvee, striking Captain Sharkey in the right forearm, then the left hand, severing the limbs from him in a split second. He screamed out, blood pouring from the wounds and onto the dashboard, door and floor of the Humvee. The rocket hit the metal frame and bounced toward Charles, hitting him square in the side of the head. His lifeless body slumped toward the steering wheel as the rocket exited the Humvee, a pink mist in its wake. Carlos felt an intense burning in his legs, as shrapnel from the rocket tore into his flesh. One of the privates in the rear of the vehicle pulled him down from the turret as they began to take small arms fire up close. The entire exchange took less than one minute, as the soldier behind Charles got out of the Humvee and returned fire with his M-16.

  It was a bloodbath inside the Humvee. Carlos kept shaking Charles by his right shoulder, hoping to get a sign of life. There was nothing. Carlos kept screaming out his name, but it was no use.

  5

  Carlos was driving to Walmart in nearby Elizabethtown just after 2 o’clock in the morning. He had just gone through the bodies in his pocket, and knew he needed to go out for a drive. He did need some things at Walmart anyway, and the middle of the night was the best time for him to go. He couldn’t be around crowds. Even a few strangers bothered him, especially in a public place. Carlos still perspired just thinking about walking the aisles and wondering if someone was going to jump out at him around the corner, or plant an explosive device amongst the produce.

  As he drove the winding back roads toward E-town, Carlos noticed flashing lights ahead. As his truck approached, it appeared to be a young woman with two young children in a mid-sized car with their four-way hazard lights on, parked in the narrow shoulder of the road. Fortunately, it was an open stretch of road, and at this time of night, there was no sign of other traffic. Tension began to take hold as Carlos began to feel an anxiety attack come on. He knew that in Iraq, terrorists often used civilians for cover to hide bombs and other explosives to trick Americans. Despite those feelings rushing over him, Carlos slowed down to see if he could be of help. He reminded himself he was in Kentucky and not Baghdad. As he approached the car, he noticed a large bag of trash in the tall grass in the ditch. He swerved away from it and decided to park in front of her. Seeing trash on the road made him think about Iraq again and how terrorists would conceal their roadside bombs in trash. It was incredible how many things would trigger him to think about that shithole of a place – halfway around the world.

  “Oh my God, thank you for stopping!” the young woman said, nearly hysterical. “I tried to call my husband, but my phone’s battery is dead. It looks like a flat tire.” Her eyes were red like she had been crying. “I just got off work and picked my boys up at the babysitter’s.”

  “No problem, ma’am, I can change it for you if you want.” He still felt apprehensive about the bag of trash, but tried to put it out of his mind so he could help this young mother who was obviously in major distress. He thought about Kayla and CJ and hoped someone would do the same for them. Still, Carlos felt like his heart was going to tear through his chest. He did his best to conceal those fears.

  As he started loosening the lug nuts, he noticed a strong burnt tire smell. She must have driven on the flat tire more than she should have. The odor of burning tires was a trigger. It was something he woke up to every day during both of his tours to Iraq. Over there it was akin to coffee and bacon in the morning. As Carlos continued to loosen the lug nuts, he could hear the sound of small arms fire in his head. He could strongly smell burning tires and trash he could hear, and a group of people chanting and yelling in Arabic. He closed his eyes and shook his head to try and come back to reality, but Carlos was back in the Humvee with Charles slumped over the wheel. Once he was struck with the rocket, the vehicle veered off the road and was sideways in a ditch. The intense pain that Carlos was feeling in his legs from the shrapnel was incredible, but he knew that the captain was in major trouble with his injuries, and one of the privates had taken a significant amount of shrapnel to his chest and face. He was also in shock, like the captain, and covered in blood.

  “Kids, you need to sit down and let this nice man change the tire,” the young woman said, as Carlos snapped out of his vivid memory of the incident.

  The kids were probably seven or eight, and both of them were making funny faces out the side window to get the attention of Carlos. They began to bang on the glass and once again, it was a familiar noise that took him to Baghdad.

  With the Humvee flipped over in the ditch, Carlos was doing his best to get out of the vehicle and call for help. With the bright sun of an early afternoon in June, it was scorching hot outside, and now some of the locals gathered around. In his jumbled state of mind, Carlos was doing his best to assess the situation. All the training and experience of dealing with crisis situations was coming to him, but knowing his best friend was dead only a few feet from him was beginning to cloud his judgement. He was feeling around for his M-16, but it was nowhere to be found. He was able to reach for Captain Sharkey’s sidearm, a 9mm pistol, and held it firmly in his grasp, in case the crowd rushed toward him. As the Iraqis began to circle the wreck, they began to taunt him even more. Some of the younger children were hurling rocks at the Humvee, while Carlos tried to raise someone on the radio to come help. The chanting of “death to America” made his blood boil, and Carlos hoped help would come his way sooner than later, as more locals joined the fray – their chants and cries almost deafening in the blinding afternoon sun.

  6

  Sergeant Charles Davenport woke up after his third surgery in two days at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center only a few miles from the Rammstein Air Base in Germany. His mind was still cluttered and groggy, as the events of June 8th continued to play out in his head. He couldn’t believe Carlos was gone. He didn’t envy Colonel Edwards having to write another one of those letters to the next of kin, in this case it would have been Kayla. Charles thought about her getting that dreaded personal visit from the unit chaplain, telling her that Carlos was killed in action, and it was too much for him to bear. He knew that little CJ would never get to know his father and how much he loved him. They told Charles that after he recovered from this last surgery, he would be sent stateside to the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. It was likely he would be getting out with a medical discharge due to the extensive nerve damage to his legs, caused by the shrapnel wounds when their Humvee was hit with an RPG. Doctors expected him to be able to walk eventually with plenty of physical therapy and patience.

  The door of his room opened, and a middle-aged woman sat down next to him and held his hand. “Good morning, Sergeant. It’s good to see you wide awake.”

  Charles thought her smile was warm, unlike the coldness of the hospital room he was in.

  “I know you’ve been through a lot, Sergeant. My name is Peggy Whitney. I’m one of the psychologists here. I’m sorry to hear about the loss of Sergeant Rivas. I heard you two were close,” she said, trying her best to smile.

  “Yeah, we were.” His eyes began to well up with tears, and he was unable to look her in the face. “I feel guilty that it wasn’t me.”

  “
That’s a normal reaction. We call it survivor’s guilt. I read through the after action report, and Private Gardner, who was the only soldier uninjured in the attack, said that you both argued about who was going to be in the turret on that patrol. It says here that you insisted on it, and Sergeant Rivas finally relented and drove the Humvee.”

  7

  It’s amazing how the mind works. They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. In the case of Sergeant Rivas, who was the driver of the Humvee that day in June, he saw that rocket only for a split second before it hit his head – killing him instantly. In that fraction of a second, he thought about what it would be like to go home and feel the guilt of his good friend, Sergeant Davenport, dying instead of him. His mind took him through going home and losing his own wife and son, going to therapy to deal with the loss and his own injuries, and even the incident changing the tire that caused a flashback. His mind even conjured up an interesting therapy of imagining all the negative things in his head as bodies in his pocket. The irony of it all was that one of those bodies in his pocket was his own.

  Killing Machine

  (first chapter of the upcoming novel “Six”)

  1

  Benito Martinez leaned back in his chair with one foot up on the small wood security desk. He held a stained Illini mug, filled with the blackest coffee he could stomach, and a cigarette dangled from his lips. He was barely awake pulling all-night Christmas Eve duty. He definitely drew the short straw this year, not only for getting the Christmas shift, but for some commotion that occurred at the start of his shift with one of the patients. A tiny excuse for a television, with a rabbit-ear antenna, was sitting on a nearby shelf, playing a marathon of sappy Christmas movies. His eyes were glazing over when the shrill ring of the desk phone nearly knocked him backwards and caused him to spill his coffee all over the desk. It was 11pm.

  “Security desk. Martinez speaking,” he said, putting his cigarette out in a heaped-over ashtray. He cringed at the sting of heartburn from the strong coffee and vending machine junk food. He reached for a roll of paper towels to clean up the mess, with the phone cradled on his shoulder and left ear.

  “Martinez, this is Gilbert Anderson. I just got off the phone with Dr. Henson. He said patient Six is in bad shape. I hear he’s burning up with a 102-degree fever and his pulse is weak. He said he didn’t think the patient would make it until morning.”

  “That’s what I heard sir. The Doc left about an hour ago. What do you need me to do?” There was a pause. Martinez could hear Gilbert breathing heavily. He didn’t want to do anything. It scared him to death to even walk by that last cell.

  “I’ve called Father O’Donnell. He’ll give the last rites. I’ll be in sometime tomorrow to check on things. If he passes in the night, just cover him with a sheet, and I’ll deal with it when I come in. He’s not going anywhere. I don’t want anyone in the Bunker after the chaplain leaves,” Gilbert said, quietly drinking bourbon on ice and chain smoking. The stress of the night was wearing thin. So many things were going through his mind right now. He debated against last rites, but with all things considered – it was the least he could do for the poor bastard. “Are we good then, Benito?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re good to go. Merry Christmas. We’ll see you tomorrow.” Martinez did find it odd they weren’t going to try and save the patient. He only had two years until retirement, and he wasn’t going to question a thing. He just needed to show up and collect a check for two more years, so he and the wife could move to San Antonio, where they both had a lot of family.

  “Merry Christmas to you as well.” Gilbert hung up the phone and rubbed his eyes hard with the heels of each hand. He could feel one hell of a headache coming on.

  2

  Thirty minutes later there was a knock on the door leading to the Bunker. The Bunker was originally designed as a bomb shelter in the late 1940’s, when the country was worried about the Soviet Union and imminent nuclear attack. After William Anderson was hired as the Peoria State Hospital administrator in 1946, he ordered the construction, but never did anything with the space. His son, Gilbert, was in charge of the hospital’s nursing school and was the head of security on the grounds. He found a use for the subterranean rooms that were kept very secret - even from his own father. Only a select handful of security guards had keys to the Bunker, and that was the way Gilbert liked to keep it.

  Martinez jumped up to answer the door and turned the television down a bit.

  “I thought you’d never get here, Father,” he said, opening the door for the elderly priest, who had served as the hospital’s chaplain for 22 years. The door opened in from one of the steam tunnels that ran beneath the ground of the 200-acre campus. The tunnels were dark and humid from the many steam leaks in the old galvanized pipes that delivered heat and hot water to the 66 buildings that made up the hospital. It was almost like walking through a sauna.

  Father O’Donnell was out of breath and sweating. He was a small man, barely 5’8” with thinning gray hair. A lower back injury caused him to stoop over, and a stroke forced him to walk with a slight limp. He was wearing a simple brown hassock and black walking shoes. His glasses were slightly fogging over from the steam. “I got here as quickly as I could. Is he still alive?”

  “As far as I know he is, but the Doc says he’s not looking too good.”

  Father O’Donnell didn’t respond for a moment, then said, “Take me to him.” He had not been down in the Bunker for years. He recalled coming down there once in 1960, when Gilbert first started using the rooms. At that time, all six cells were occupied. That was before his stroke. Some of the chaplain’s memory was compromised after that, and his right side had lost most of the strength he once had. He struggled to get from building to building at the hospital. Some days he spent 10 hours on his feet, and at 68 years old, he wasn’t holding up well. He longed for the days when he coached boys’ basketball and was full of vigor.

  Martinez led the way down the dark and narrow hallway, past five empty cells. Father O’Donnell shuffled along, trying to keep up. The lighting was poor, with bare light bulbs that hung from the ceiling. Some bulbs were out, and some flickered, giving the hallway an extremely creepy feel. The cells looked just like jail cells, with metal bars and gaudy old locks. The bars were corroded from many years of exposure to the humid environment of the Bunker. The cells were sparse; each one contained a small metal bunk attached to the wall and a bucket each patient used for a toilet. The accommodations were stark. The walls were brick and mortar that were beginning to crumble from age, as they approached 30 years since construction. The humid conditions had accelerated the process. The floors were concrete and damp to the touch, and a faint odor of mold permeated the subterranean landscape. As the two men stood outside the sixth and final cell, Martinez paused before he put his key into the lock. The number six was stenciled to the metal header above the door like an Army footlocker. Father O’Donnell peered into the dim light to find the patient they called Six lying on his back in a fitful sleep. A foul smell emanated from the darkness - a combination of excrement and rank body odor, from showering only once a month.

  Martinez opened the cell doors and then stepped back into the recesses of the hallway, his black uniform making him almost invisible. His hands shook slightly as he lit up a cigarette. “He’s been moaning for the past two days, but today his skin got real red, and it looked like he was burning alive with fever. That’s when I called the Doc.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  Father O’Donnell knew that the young man was in his early twenties. They had a past. He found it odd that Gilbert wanted him to conduct last rites, since he never knew the man to be religious in any way. He also wondered why they didn’t take him to one of the two hospital buildings on the campus. The chaplain knew better than to question it out loud. Gilbert obviously had his reasons.

  The priest noted that the man was sweating profusely through his uniform and onto the threadbare sheet beneath him. On a white
cloth at the foot of the bunk, the priest laid down his bible, a small container of holy oil, and a large metal crucifix that his mother got him as a gift for his First Communion. In his 45 years as a Catholic priest, he administered last rites more than one hundred times in a variety of denominations. Since becoming the chaplain, he performed several last rites a week, with more than 2,000 patients in his spiritual care. While he knew the last rites prepared the dying person for the afterlife, it was still a somber ritual.

  “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit – Amen,” said Father O’Donnell, as he made the sign of the cross. The old priest put one feeble hand on the young man’s shoulder, and the other grasped the crucifix.

  “You want me to lock the cell doors, Father?” asked Martinez, his large frame standing several feet away from the cell, in the shadows of the hallway.

  Father O’Donnell looked toward him in the shadows. “No. This young man is dying. There’s no need to lock the doors.”

  The patient was mumbling something under his breath. Sweat was beading up on his gaunt face, as the priest mopped his brow with a handkerchief. Father O’Donnell could feel the heat of the fever that had driven the patient to his death bed. He wondered why Martinez appeared so apprehensive and was standing several steps away from the cell doors, as if he was afraid to come closer.

  “Are you scared, Benito?”

  Martinez lit another cigarette. “A little bit, Father. I don’t like being around this little bastard, especially when he’s not locked in his cage. When I first started working down here a few years ago, he almost killed one of the guards.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke, shaking his head.