He flattened his body to the ground and rolled to his right, knowing others would be firing at his position. And they did. The ground erupted as Soviet 7.62 mm shells rocketed through the grass and slammed into the dirt right where he had been hiding, raising a dust cloud into the hot, stinking air. Bap-bap-bap-bap.
Jesus Christ I’m not going to get out of this not going to get out of this God please help me
He felt a stinging sensation in his left calf and instinctively pulled his leg toward his body. There was blood pouring from a hole in his uniform, right above his boot. He’d been shot. It didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would, but the pain would come soon enough. He grabbed his leg with both hands and—
Both hands.
Brody stared at his hands. Bloody, grimy, but they were both there.
He held his left hand in front of his face, turned it, looking at the back, then at the palm. His left hand. His left arm. For a split second, Brody was overjoyed to have a missing part of himself back in place, but that was impossible. This was impossible. It was 1968, and he hadn’t been in a firefight since 1965. And battle had never been like this, even when he’d lost his left arm.
I’m dreaming, that’s all this is. I’m only dreaming. This isn’t real.
The ground exploded about thirty meters to his left, and a shower of dirt and debris rained down on him, the dust choking and thick. He coughed and spat the dirt from his mouth. He was so thirsty.
Dream or not, he couldn’t help but make himself as small as possible as the bullets crisscrossed above him. The stench of blood-soaked ground was strong. That was just as he’d remembered. It was a smell no man could ever forget.
Brody grabbed for his rifle as another man appeared through the thin shafts of elephant grass and dropped down beside him. He was wearing sergeant stripes and had lost his helmet. His face was bloody—a long crease across his left cheek. A bullet had grazed him. Another fraction of an inch and his head would’ve—
“Are you hit, Corporal?” he yelled.
“In the leg, but I’m okay,” Brody yelled back. The sergeant (Brody saw his name was Collins) motioned off to their rear. “We need to get to those trees! Can you move?”
Brody put some weight on his leg. It didn’t feel broken, which meant the bullet had probably passed right through. The wound was starting to hurt now, really hurt, but he could still use the leg. It shouldn’t hurt this bad, because this isn’t real. It isn’t real.
The sergeant grabbed him by the uniform, shook him. “Can you move?”
Brody nodded without thinking.
“Follow me!” the sergeant yelled and started weaving through the grass at a crouch, bullets whipping right over his head.
Brody moved quickly, out of instinct more than anything else. He gripped his rifle (with both hands) as he followed the sergeant through the grass. He skidded to a stop as the shells impacted the sergeant’s body a fraction of a second before he heard the clanging bap-bap-bap of an AK-47 to his right. The sergeant stood straight up, arms wide, his rifle tumbling through the air. There was blood. So much blood. He fell facedown into the grass, dead before he even hit the dirt.
Brody brought his rifle to his shoulder, swung right, and squeezed the trigger before he had a target. Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. His spent shells spun away from his M16, and he saw his target. Saw the man . . . No, not a man, more like a boy. He had a surprised look on his face and knew what was about to happen. Brody watched him close his eyes. Then he watched his own bullets stitch across the soldier’s shoulders, left to right, the boy’s body twitching violently with each impact. Then the body fell backward, disappearing into the grass.
Brody crouched, dropped his empty magazine, dug another one out of a pouch, inserted it, and slammed the bolt release with the palm of his hand. He swung around, searching for another target—there! He took aim, began to squeeze the trigger, then relaxed his pull. It wasn’t another NVA, and it wasn’t one of his own. It was something so out of place, so bold and unafraid, that he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
A man, dressed in all black, stood about fifteen meters away. But no, it was no man. It was a hole. A chasm. A shadow, in the shape of a man.
Brody had seen it before. His let his rifle drop off target. He was confused, not only by what he was seeing, but by the silence that surrounded him.
The firing had stopped. All at once, the war decided to take a time-out.
All Brody heard was the wind snaking through the elephant grass, the thin blades whispering in the breeze.
He was alone now. There were no other soldiers around him, no cries for help, no screams of artillery or sharp reports from rifle muzzles. They were all gone. Only he remained, and the
shadow man
shadow man
“He knows where I live? Who knows?”
“The shadow man, that’s who.”
Brody lined up his iron sights, flicked his selector switch to SEMI, and pulled the trigger. The M16 bucked against his shoulder, just once, sending a 55-grain full metal jacketed projectile right at its head at over 3,100 feet per second. If it were a man, a physical being, it would be dead, but the bullet only disappeared into the blackness where its head should be. The experience was like shooting through a doorway into a dark shroud beyond.
Not real, Brody said to himself. He tossed his rifle to the ground. “I’m dreaming,” he said loudly. “You’re not real.” The thing—the shadow man—didn’t move toward him. Rather, it pointed at him. Directly at Brody’s chest.
“What do you want?” Brody screamed, wishing he could wake up and leave this crazy nightmare behind. The figure continued to point at his chest, and Brody could now actually discern a finger, as if the shadow man were taking shape.
Brody looked down. His uniform was caked in dirt and blood, the lower part of his pant leg stained blackish-red from his bullet wound. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be seeing.
The shadow man brought its hand to its face—it was a hand, and there was a face now, too, hidden behind some sort of black helmet visor. It held two fingers to the visor, each finger pointing to where its eyes should be, then it pointed to the right side of its chest. Brody watched as it repeated the motion, then pointed at his chest. Brody looked down again, and then he saw what the shadow man was pointing at.
The name tape.
J O H N S O N
Not Q U A I L.
“Brody! Get away from it!”
Brody wheeled to his right and saw a girl running through the elephant grass toward him. She had red hair.
You have to remember, okay? Please, you have to remember.
His head throbbed murderously, and he dropped to his knees. The pain shot from the back of his head down across his shoulders and rocketed down his spine, like he’d been struck by lightning. When he opened his eyes again, he wasn’t in South Vietnam. The bloody battlefield was no more. He was on a street.
The air was cold. Icy. Nighttime.
He was home again.
The shadow man was still there, but he was no longer a shadow. He was newly visible, clad in black from his helmet to his boots. His head was turned to Brody’s right. Brody looked in the same direction and saw her.
The girl. Red hair, coveralls. Connie. Her name is Connie. Brody heard the man’s boots pounding across the street as he watched Connie skid to a halt.
She looked at Brody, her eyes wide and full of fright. “Brody, run!” she screamed, turning around and heading for one of the buildings nearby.
Brody stood up and spied his rifle lying in the street. Wherever he’d come from (a battlefield dream, a something), the weapon had tagged along. He grabbed the M16 by the pistol grip and brought it to his shoulder, or at least he tried to. His left arm wasn’t there, only a stump, pointing to where a long-gone hand would’ve grabbed the rifle’s forestock.
He didn’t need the hand.
He brought the rifle up, jammed the butt stock into his armpit, and aimed as best he could, tra
cking the shadow man as he ran across the street. “Come on, slow and steady,” he told himself, trying to keep the muzzle pointed at his target. The last thing he wanted to do was shoot Connie by mistake. He’d shot the M16 one-handed like this before, but it had been so long ago. (1965 was a long time ago, wasn’t it?) He took a deep breath, concentrated on the black shape in the street, and pulled the trigger.
The rifle barked once, the report incredibly loud in the darkened street.
But there was no shadow man in the street. Brody had hit him, he knew he had, but there was no body.
The shadow man was gone. Disappeared, just like Connie, he remembered. Just like Connie did. The last time I saw her.
Disjointed memories flooded through his mind, each one similar, yet so different. He’d been on this street, walking home, when he was jumped by three men—
who walked away
who pretended to have a gun
who pulled a gun
who he managed to ward off
who kicked his ass
who shot him
who he killed
But how could that be?
“Brody?” Connie’s voice. She was walking toward him, tentatively, her eyes fixed on the black rifle tucked under his arm. Brody swung the barrel away from her.
“I remember you,” he said. “From this place. Before.”
She smiled and actually looked relieved.
“Thank God, oh thank God,” she said. “You’re the only one.”
The only one? “I don’t understand what’s going on,” Brody said. “What just happened? You saw it, right? I was in Vietnam again, and then there you were.”
She cocked her head slightly. “Vietnam?”
“The valley, the firefight, where we just were!”
“A valley? I don’t understand.”
“You were there with me, and then we were back here.” Oh, come on. I didn’t imagine the whole thing, did I? Then he remembered the rifle in his hand. “Where I brought this thing from.”
She stared at him, silent.
“Brody,” she said softly, “I never saw a valley. The first thing I remember was seeing you in the street and the shadow man close to you. I screamed at you to get away from it, then you shot it.”
“You didn’t see the valley? The soldiers? Any of that?”
She shook her head.
“Jesus Christ,” Brody said, “what’s wrong with me?”
Connie put her hand on his shoulder, quickly cutting her eyes to the rifle and then back to his face. “Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just starting with you. And it’s going to get worse.”
“What’s starting?”
“The same thing that happened to me. Is happening.”
“Lady, I’d really appreciate it if you would give me some goddamned answers here.” From the look that spread across her face, Brody immediately regretted his tone. He sighed, then said, “I need to understand what’s going on. That’s all.”
“Come on,” Connie said, her voice a little colder than before. “We need to move before it comes back.”
“I shot it,” Brody said, knowing she was referring to the shadow man. “I don’t think it’s coming back.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’ll be back.” She started walking down the street and motioned for him to follow. Brody began to drop his rifle, but she said, “No, keep it.”
“If it didn’t work, then—”
“It made him go away. Bought us some time. It might work again.”
Brody thumbed the selector switch to SAFE and clutched the rifle by the carry handle. He followed her, still numbed by everything that had just happened. Nothing was making any sense, and this girl, Connie, had answers. Or at least more than he had at the moment, which would have to suffice. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“Anywhere but here. He appears where things are familiar, the places that are whole. We need to find a boundary.”
“A boundary?”
“You’ll see,” she said. “But we have to hurry. I don’t know how much time I have.”
Before she disappears. Brody walked behind her, his eyes cutting to the shadows that filled the empty spaces between the buildings and houses on the street, the places where the shadow man could be watching them, unseen, then emerge before they had a chance to react. He wondered if there were three thugs lying in the street behind them, or if they were following him and Connie right now. He looked over his shoulder, but there was only a cold, dark street. One streetlight was flickering.
“You said you don’t know how much time you have.”
“It’s never the same,” she replied. “Sometimes, it’s only a few seconds, and other times it’s hours.”
“Before you disappear.”
“Yes. Before I leave whatever place I’m in, and go back to—” They both jumped at a crashing sound behind them, far down the street and out of view. Connie cut into an alley. “Come on!”
Brody followed, keeping his eyes on the street, looking for the shadow man to emerge into the streetlights.
When they were almost all the way through the alley to the other side, Connie slowed. “Brody, have you ever been here before?”
He felt a slight pang of pain in the back of his head.
He needed to run, to go where he’d never been before.
The pain passed quickly. “In this alley?” he replied. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Come here,” she said.
Brody stood beside her and looked out of the alley into the street beyond. He squinted, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.
The scene before him was nothing more than a swirling black mass, as if an army of shadows were coalescing, turning, spinning; black ghosts without form or being chasing one another, becoming one, then splitting into two, three, four clouds of darkness, then back again. A black canvas of nothingness where other buildings and houses should be.
“What in God’s name is that?” Brody said, dropping his rifle to the asphalt.
“You never asked me where I go when I disappear,” Connie said, her voice trembling. “Now you know.”
At that moment, the day ended for twenty-six-year-old Brody Quail.
And Connie disappeared into the nothingness.
Chapter 21
BRODY16
Brody found himself standing in a completely unfamiliar place, the middle of a bleak expanse, barren and flat, stretching away as far as he could see. Mountains stood in the distance to the west, low and brown, while buildings appeared to the north, but they weren’t shaped like any cityscape he’d seen before.
They’re wrecked. Even at this distance, Brody could see the structures had been destroyed. Blackened and burnt, ruined high-rises stretching into a grayish sky. Brody was confused, scared. None of this felt right. The ground below him was covered by a fine, gray dust, the hot wind swirling it around his feet. He tasted the dust in his mouth. Gritty and bitter, like ash.
He remembered being in school, talking to his friends. Seeing Joan.
He was driving her home.
He felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and winced at the ferocity of it. The sensation passed quickly, but tears had started to form. He wiped them away but only managed to get ash in his eyes. It stung, making his eyes water even more.
“I’m dreaming,” he said to himself. “None of this is real.” He’d wake up soon. He was still in bed, and when his alarm clock went off, he’d get up and get ready for school.
No. This was all too real. He spat some of the gritty ash onto the ground, the thick glob of saliva causing a puff of ash to float into the air.
Everything was burnt. The ground, the mountains, even the buildings in the distance were charred. The sky was as gray as the soil upon which he stood.
This place was dead, with only the moaning of the hot wind to keep him company.
He stood where he was for quite a while, waiting patiently for the dream to end (the dream that sure didn’t feel
like one). Minutes passed, and Brody had a more and more difficult time breathing. And he was starving. Sweat trickled down his back. Even though the sun was hidden, he still felt the heat beating down on him.
What are you going to do, Brody? Stand here and melt? He decided to walk toward the buildings in the distance. He was unable to judge exactly how far away they were, but he had to find some sort of shelter from the heat and wind, dream or no dream. The buildings would provide at least some relief from the elements, and anyway, he wanted to take a closer look.
As he walked, he thought about what he and his friends had talked about (was it yesterday, the day before?) after the news of Reagan’s assassination attempt had swept through school.
Had the Russians been behind it?
If we found out they tried to kill him, we’d nuke the living shit out of that place, Kyle had said.
That’s what this place looked like. The aftermath of a nuclear war. It all made sense; the ruined, blackened buildings, the ash (fallout?) covering the ground . . . It looked like the entire landscape had been nuked. Fallout was radioactive, and he was covered with it. With every step, swirls of the ash rose into the air, sticking to his clothes, getting into his mouth, his nose, his lungs. If this was fallout, he was a goner.
But wait a minute. This wasn’t real. Couldn’t be. Why would he suddenly find himself in the middle of a radioactive wasteland with no memory of how he got there? No, he was dreaming. Had to be.
His eyes were drawn to a reflection in the distance, a quick flash, nothing more, as if the sunlight (what little of it there was) had glinted off something metallic. Then he saw the dust plume, rising into the air. A vehicle was heading his way, throwing up a long tail of ash and dust as it drove across the landscape.
Brody wanted to run, to hide, but instead dropped to the ground, trying not to inhale too much (radioactive) dust. Where could he go? At first, he thought they might just drive by without seeing him, but they were coming directly at him. He could run, but they’d surely spotted him. The vehicle was a large truck, like the army used. Maybe they’d take him back to the city (what was left of it) and help him. He was incredibly thirsty, and his stomach was growling like crazy. He noticed how weak he felt, too, and hoped it wasn’t because of the amount of radioactive crap he’d already gotten all over (and inside) his body. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he’d read somewhere how slow and painful death from radiation poisoning could be.
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