by Jane Slate
Landon looked away from Nash and hung his head.
He was rambling. He had been for days. The heat was getting the best of him. Landon had seen it happen before. Eventually the brain just shut down.
Machines. That’s what they had become. Somewhere in the cycle of load, fire, load, they had lost themselves. Their lives revolved around a routine and they didn’t have it in themselves to care. Not anymore. Not after everything that had transpired.
If you had feelings here you died. It was just the way it went. They had all learned that lesson the hard way after weeping over the bodies of men they had come to know as brothers.
An explosion in the distance rattled the ground. The sky filled with smoke. Miller, Brooks, Nash and the rest of the men grabbed for their helmets and stumbled to their feet. Landon grabbed his rifle out of sheer instinct and began to fire it at an enemy he couldn’t see, one click after the other, until the sound finally ceased.
A deafening silence filled the air as Debris began to fall and cover the sand. The sun flickered its bright orange rays against the desert. Miller clutched his shoulder and stumbled to the ground, breathless and unable to continue.
They were posted about fifty kilometers south of the Pakistan border. What was left of their squad were nine Marines who had lost their own. Nash, Landon and Miller had been ambushed a month ago as they rounded the Khyber Pass, a set of mountains that connected Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The men who cornered them shouted like Injuns, rifles arched and ready for battle. They lowered them once they realized they were dealing with three of their own.
Most of them were wounded, both physically and mentally. Nash had insisted on letting them join their squad, reasoning that they had the only source of water for at least one hundred miles. That they’d die without their help. Landon agreed. They needed all the men they could get.
Even the wounded ones.
Miller was the most badly injured of all the men. Somewhere along the way, he had been shot in the shoulder by a sniper and had lost a hell of a lot of blood. But that didn’t stop him from misbehaving. He was a jokester at heart, the kind of guy who thought rules were below him.
Regardless, Landon wasn’t sure how much longer he would make it. They had cauterized the wound as best they could but there was nothing they could do to keep it from getting infected.
He couldn’t die.
He had a girl and a couple of kids waiting for him back home on base in Falls Creek. They were all he talked about.
Landon scrambled over to where Miller had collapsed on the ground and uncapped his canteen. He held it to his mouth. He took a sip and smiled a tight smile, thanking him.
The look in his eyes was one of a man coming to terms with his death.
A few feet away from him, Nash and Brooks were pacing, their rifles aimed at the sky. The rest of the men did the same, looking over at Landon for instruction.
He didn’t have any.
Incoming fire blurred his vision, making it impossible for him to string together a thought. Still, he rose to command, not wanting his men to see how scared he was.
“LETS GO!” he yelled, grabbing for his rifle with shaking hands,
“FOLLOW ME! STAY LOW!”
He hurdled forward in the sand as his men tailed him from behind. Terror flooded over them. They were firing at an enemy they couldn’t see, but what other choice did they have?
They continued to surge forward at Landon’s command, holding fire as bombs went off around them. They hesitated, unsure of how to react. Landon weighed his options. They could either die here or they could continue fighting. He told the men that the choice was their own. That he would respect whatever conclusion they came to.
But none of them backed down.
Round after round splattered the dirt. The sound was a familiar one. Reminiscent of a pack of angry hornets buzzing in unison.
Most battles sounded like popcorn, with sudden spurts of firing that would die down into a lull before starting up again. But this wasn’t anything like that. This was one loud vulgar explosion after the next.
Landon jumped at the sound of a plane. Nash noticed too and stepped forward. Hope settled over them, but they didn’t dare signal for it. They clutched their rifles with sweaty hands and paced along the edge of the tank. The plane came flying towards them.
Landon noticed the familiar stars and stripes on the wing and exhaled a deep breath.
Help had finally arrived.
Except it hadn’t.
Someone inside the plane began to shoot at them, one loud crack after the next. Landon and Nash dove for cover, waving at the other men to do the same, but some were inevitably hit.
Brooks was the first to go. He was hit dead center in the chest. His legs collapsed beneath him as he fell to the ground. Landon watched in horror as the life drained from his eyes and stifled a scream.
He was going to propose to his girlfriend and the mother of his children when he returned home. Now, she would be burying him.
Hampton, a second tour Marine from another infantry, was the next to die. He took a round to the head and fell to the ground like a rock. Didn’t even see it coming. He had married his high school sweetheart before he left and shortly after, she gave birth to their daughter.
He never met her, and now, he never would.
The third casualty was a goodhearted man named Kane. He threw himself in front of a round fired at another man and yelled for him to keep going.
“I’m already dead,” he concluded, resting his head in the sand. He died seconds later, leaving behind two teenage sons and a wife.
Landon couldn’t stop to mourn any of them. He scurried to his feet to avoid fire, shielding his eyes from the sand and dust that flew around him. He could see Nash in the distance, although just barely. He was running, grabbing the ammunition and rifles from each fallen man and bending to check their pulse.
It had been programmed into them that no Marine should die alone. Any Marine who was injured or wounded had to be rescued. Or an attempt at least had to be made.
Landon jumped to his feet and ran to help Nash but he tripped over a body in the process and hit his head against the nose of the tank.
Just like that, he was out like the lights.
Chapter Three
When Landon finally opened his eyes, he was greeted by the smell of gas and a deafening silence.
For a brief moment, he couldn't remember where he was. Gut curdling screams filled the air. He heard a loud whistle and fell to the ground. Somewhere behind him, a bomb went off and blew something to pieces.
People.
He looked around frantically for Nash and the rest of his surviving men, but a fog filled the air and mixed with dust and sand, making it difficult to see.
Landon crawled forward, keeping his head low and dragging his rifle behind himself. He felt something in the sand and looked down.
Body parts.
Scattered everywhere. He opened his mouth to scream but his tongue was dry and heavy and no sound came out. Their campsite was burnt and in ruins. Men had been dismantled and swept aside like trash. Some of them were still alive, writhing and stunned. Some of them were unconscious, never to be woken up. Most of them had lost limbs. It was quite the sight to take in, but when you’re used to lifting heavy bodies from the sand, bodies of men you had come to know as comrades and friends, it wasn’t all that shocking.
Landon heaved into the sand but his stomach was empty and nothing surfaced. He avoided the bodies and continued crawling, sifting through the rubble for any sign of Nash. The far off sound of voices filled his ears. They were speaking Pashto; the language of hate and intolerance.
Landon stood to his feet and guarded his eyes, aiming his rifle.
A dust cloud blocked his vision but he continued forward. He froze when the barrel of a machine gun pressed against his temple. The man wielding it shouted the same thing over and over again in Pashto but Landon couldn’t understand him. He s
tood as still as he could manage as sweat dripped down his forehead into his eyes.
“I don’t understand you,” he said evenly, dropping his rifle and holding up his hands to surrender.
The man hit him across the face with the barrel of his gun and Landon fell to the ground. A sharp pain seared through his temples as his vision darkened. From his spot on the ground, he caught a glimpse of two figures creeping through the smoke.
It was Nash with Miller a few feet behind him. They picked their way through the pile of dead men in a daze and called out Landon’s name. The man holding Landon hostage heard their voices and aimed his machine gun in their direction.
“No!” Landon yelled, his voice hoarse.
A shot went off, followed by another and another. The man ran forward, his gun aimed to fire.
To kill.
With all the energy Landon could muster, he pulled forward and yelled the only two words he knew in Pashto. The two he had memorized just in case he would ever have to use them.
He weighed his options but there was only one. When it came down to the two men he cared most about, men with families and women they loved, Landon’s own life paled in comparison.
“Kill me!” he yelled. “Kill me instead!”
The man stopped in his tracks and spun around on his feet. Nash yelled out something Landon couldn’t hear. A single shot rung in his ears. He turned to run but a second bullet caught him and knocked him to the ground.
For what felt like hours, it went on like this.
Landon managed to crawl behind the tank to avoid further fire, but there was nothing he could do about the sound or the putrid, unforgettable smell of his men dying.
He crouched his head and waited for salvation.
He recalled the events that had led him here and winched as each memory replayed in his head. They were all there, embedded in his mind.
Never to be forgotten.
The first time he had ever taken a life. The first time he had ever been wounded in battle. The look on his mother’s face when he told her he was leaving and the brave front that followed. His parent’s funeral. Landon had many regrets buried in the deepest recesses of his mind.
But now wasn’t the time for them.
As he squinted through dust and sweat he noticed a change in the horizon. A warm feeling spread over his body. If this was death, it wasn’t half as bad as he expected. He noticed a small red fleck fall from the sky. It moved at a tremendous velocity and landed a few miles away from him in the sand. He tried to yell for the last of his men to take cover, but he couldn’t hear his voice. Rounds of ammunition exploded around him. One of the clips caught him in the neck and the world went black.
This time it wasn’t the enemy.
It was a stupid kill order made by an incompetent lieutenant that had killed his men. Friendly fire. The Taliban had tracked the medic plane as it landed and instead of shooting them, the pilot had rained hell down upon his own in the form of clips and bombs. He killed more of his own Marines that day than he did rags.
Night fell over them without a sound but its peaceful efforts weren’t appreciated. Below the sky a stretch of destruction laid. Corpses sprawled across the ground, some whole, some not. Red ran in every direction. The scene and the scent stretched for miles. The repelling, rusty taste of blood lingered in the air. Every few seconds, a deafening bang would resonate before fading away; a startling contrast to the apocalyptic atmosphere.
Debris began to sprinkle the ground.
All was still and all was ruined.
In the midst of it all, Nash and Miller ran forward unharmed and crouched over Landon. They dropped their rifles and let out piercing screams but they sounded far away. Tears streamed down their faces. Nash held his hand to Landon’s throat to stop the bleeding and willed him to hang on as the medic plane landed.
The look on the pilots face was one of horror as he surveyed the destruction he had set into action.
The bodies of Brooks, Hampton and four other Soldiers were packaged and sent home in white body bags. Their families weren’t told the truth of their demise.
As Landon limped onto the cargo plane, he looked at the faces of the only living members of his squad. Nash, Miller, and Richie Jenson, a private from Tennessee.
They were shadows of themselves.
Dark and haunted by what they had lived through.
It was pouring rain by the bucket load when the plane landed for its layover in Moscow. Every flight had been delayed or canceled due to the weather. Landon was awoken by a petite Russian stewardess. He flinched and reacted in under a second, grabbing the young woman by the wrist, his grip tight and sweaty as he stood to his feet.
It took a moment for him to realize he wasn’t in any danger of an attack. Even so, the girl stared at him, her brown eyes wide and terrified. The touch of a woman had become so unfamiliar to Landon that he hesitated in letting her go.
Although she wasn’t the most beautiful woman, she was soft and feminine. Two traits he had long since forgotten. Finally, he let her go and apologized, gathering up his belongings as he exited the plane and stepped out into the busy terminal.
Rain hit the large glass windows that framed the runway in heavy droplets. Landon took a seat in an empty chair and contemplated what life would be like when he returned home. The war had taken quite a toll on him. His empathetic nature had been replaced with deadly precision and an instinct to survive and protect the men who fought alongside him.
He had earned the right to go home.
At least, he liked to think so.
Nineteen hours later, Landon was awoken by Miller. They boarded their final flight in single file fashion. The one that would bring them back to Falls Creek in one piece.
Many men weren’t as lucky.
When they finally arrived, a nervousness settled over Landon. He looked around the airport in a daze, half-expecting to see his parents there waiting for him. But they were both long gone.
While the rest of the men greeted their wives and children, Landon’s luggage was his only solace. With a sigh, he picked up each duffle bag from the conveyor belt and made a beeline for the exit, feeling as though he was still in another country rather than returning home.
When he saw her, he stopped in his tracks.
There wasn’t a moment in the years since he had last seen her that he didn’t think of her. He thought about her smile and the way her auburn hair framed her face whenever he wanted to keep himself calm. He missed her even though they never had anything tangible together.
Now, he knew they never would.
She embraced Miller and kissed him as their children stared on and Landon’s breath caught in his throat. He wasn’t surprised that she had found someone.
What surprised him was who.
Chapter Four
People were packed inside the airport. Families. Wives. Children. All of them awaiting the arrival of the men they had seen off two years prior. The plane touched down and moments later the remnants of the once-proud Marines piled out of the tiny terminal. Some of them walked with limps. Some of them didn’t walk at all.
Grace watched as a haunted looking man in a wheelchair was pushed out of the terminal by a stewardess. She swallowed hard. That could have been Miller.
She smiled down at her children reassuringly.
Some people cheered for the men. Others cried. Grace reflected on how she had felt when Miller first told her he was leaving. Of the hallow feeling that had settled over her as she watched him board the plane, unsure if he would come home. As he came into view, one of the last men out of the terminal, she felt something else entirely.
Relief.
All the dark thoughts and fear that had clouded her the past three years evaporated the second they laid eyes on each other. She was so overwhelmed with relief that she didn’t even notice how tired he looked. How disheveled his clothing was. How sad and glossed over his eyes were.
“Daddy!” Grace’s daughter and oldest
child, Lily, exclaimed. She ran towards her father and threw her arms around him with her other two siblings in tow. Henry, the middle child; the spitting image of his father. And Ella, the youngest.
Miller picked each one of them up and kissed them, but his eyes never left Grace’s. He waved her over and she stepped toward him in slow motion, blinking back tears.
It frightened her how much he had changed. But there were things about him that felt familiar too. The rest of the world melted away as they embraced. She flung her arms around his neck and he picked her up, burying his face in her hair. He complimented her on how good she smelled. How beautiful she looked. And with every word that fell from his lips, she fell in love with him all over again, forgetting all the bad things that had surfaced in their relationship prior to him leaving.
She clung to Miller in the middle of the airport, surrounded by their children and other Marines reuniting with their families.
And she didn’t let go.
She wouldn’t let go.
Not this time.
“I missed you,” Grace whispered. She traced a finger over the scar that ran along Miller’s cheek and he flinched. He brought his lips to hers. She kissed him roughly, bringing a hand to his beard. It hadn’t been there when he left but she didn’t entirely mind it. Their tongues tangled. The children grimaced but neither Grace nor Miller had it in them to care. When they finally pulled away from each other, they were both breathless, their faces wet with tears.
“Let’s go home,” Miller said, reaching down to grab his bags. He heaved them over his shoulder and stopped to introduce his family to a few men from his squad. Grace greeted each man cordially, shaking their hands and thanking them for their service.
“Grace?”
Grace’s breath caught in her throat. Her body contracted as a large hand reached out to touch her. She knew it was him without having to look. She told herself to breathe. When she turned around, her eyes fell on his tattered uniform.
It wasn’t much different from Miller’s except for the additional badges that adorned it.