by S. A. Lowry
Trevor, now growing more uneasy and anxious. Keys the platoon net and calls out for Stalker 9, his platoon sergeant. No response.
“Come on Lipcott. Answer the damn net!” a weary Trevor exclaims to himself. Moments go by, nothing. The truck is now in a dead silence. The soldiers are trying to take in the situation one bit at a time in their own way. Gilroy seems to be getting worse as Ringo is the only one to notice.
As the lone MRAP pushes through the Iraqi darkness at night down the freeway, they pull off onto an abandoned dirt road which leads off into the open desert about a few hundred meters off. Once they find their spot, they decide to park and wait. Trevor continues to call up other stations and get an update. All have failed. He switched his frequency to Battalion net and other various company nets and all led to the same result. Out of desperation, he decides to put his company net back on. After a few minutes of silence and a few cigerettes later as they wait in the darkness, someone keys the hand mic on the other side starting off with the significant beeping sound every transmission has before it emits over the headset.
Everyone’s eyes grow wide as they lean forward to hear what is about to be said over the net. All they receive, is brutal and mutiliating screams from the other side of headquarters. The sounds of gurgling and painful moans can be heard as people on the other side scream for their lives. This was the final straw for Trevor. The hand mic on the other in cut in and out. Everytime it came back on, the screams were louder and so were the moans.
Trevor decided right then and there, there was no turning back. No going back there. They had to move on. Coming to this realization, Gilroy, who sits in the back all in his lonesome, begins crying frantically and out of control. Tears run down his scared blood shot eyes as he releases moans of sorrow and fear. Everyone in the back stare at him in pity until Ringo smacks him across the face. Gilroy calls out in pain and falls off his chair into the ground while the MRAP seat instantly rises up to it’s non-used position upon Gilroy falling off it.
“Control yourself Gilroy!” Ringo yells with convication at Gilroy as he hops on top of him and stares him into his eyes. Ringo begins to wipe the tears off Gilroy’s face with his tactical hard knuckled gloves and lifts him up to place him on the seat. Gilroy suddenly stops crying and remains silent. Hunter, hearing the incident unfold over the headset while in the driver’s seat, emits a sinister grin while shaking his head.
Trevor sits in his seat in silence trying to decide what to do. He stares at the map on the BFT as a thought crosses his mind. Moments pass as he suddenly begins nodding his head in acceptance.
“Yeah . . . . yeah,” Trevor tells himself as he leans forward and pulls the stylus off the BFT monitor. He begins carefully plotting a navigational route from his location. Hunter constantly leans over trying to make out what he’s doing on the screen when Trevor comes up over the headset to talk to his guys.
“Okay guys. Check this out. We know what’s going on back there. We can not establish communications with anyone from our unit. Knowing what we saw, and just barely making it out of there. I say we head for Kuwait. Our best chance right now, is to go to Camp Buehring where there are many American forces still left,” explains Trevor in a tone of voice which carries hope.
He then goes on to add, “It’s all about survival now. I don’t want to risk going back there and getting caught up in that again. Whatever is going down here, i’m sure they are tracking it now in Kuwait. We need to get over the border to safety and link back up with friendly forces. You all in?” asks Trevor.
Everyone on the truck shockingly agrees. They can not believe what they are about to do, however, fully aware that it has to be done if they are to survive. Upon coming to the agreement, Trevor finishes plotting his route.
“Alright I got a route down to Kuwait. I never exactly driven to Buehring from Iraq, however, I got a pretty good idea how to get there. This map will help us out greatly. It can’t be that hard. Hunter, lets start moving.”, exclaims Trevor.
Hunter obliges then reminds Trevor they are only on a half tank of gas. Trevor shakes his head in dissapproval while ignoring the question.
“We’ll figure it out later. Let’s get moving bro. It’s now or never,” Trevor states as the MRAP’s headlights turn on and light up the night desert.
The truck begins rolling down the trail back to the main freeway. Upon hitting the main route, they pick up their speed and head south to the border of Kuwait. “Once we get to the village of Safwan we’ll come across the border crossing into Kuwait. There should be border patrol guys there on the Kuwaiti side. We’ll see if there is fuel there as well. For now lets just worry about getting there,” Trevor adds as the MRAP picks up speed to 50 mph.
As the truck moves down the dark lonely Iraqi freeway, akward silence fills the truck for about twenty minutes. That is when Trevor breaks the silence over the headset in a loud voice.
“Damnit. That means I won’t get to finish the season finale of Desperate Housewives. Guess it wasn’t meant to be, huh guys?” jokes Trevor. Some of the guys on the truck involuntarily bust out laughing effectively breaking the ice of the grim situation. Price can be heard chuckling from the turret. Gilroy still remains silent. Ringo stays stoic as usual. Reagal is laughing uncontrollably. Christopher is chuckling as well while Hunter smiles and concentrates on the road.
Some time passes by as they are on the road. They do not encounter any vehicles passing by them or foot traffic. The road seemed dead. Just like everything else in this country, Trevor concludes to himself as he continues to chain smoke as the truck moves and Price continues to scan up in the turret. As the truck comes closer and closer to it’s desintation, now about only a few miles from their turn off into Safwan, Price notices bright lights off into the distance as their truck heads right for it.
He calls it down to Trevor, as Trevor tries to make out where the lights are coming from off into the distance. As they approach closer, they begin noticing what is on the other side waiting for them. Price identifies four Iraqi Army vehicles parked across the road setting up a blocking position.
“What the hell is this,” nervously calls out Hunter as he slows the truck down before coming to a complete halt due to the road being blocked.
Trevor identifies at least seventeen Iraqi army soldiers standing by the truck, manning machine guns on the back and in the turrets of their humvees. The Iraqi soldiers put up their arms and display a fist in order for the single lone MRAP to stop. Hunter stops the truck while the soldiers on board decide what to do next. The Iraqi Army soldiers now have their weapons drawn on the vehicle and are giving hand and arms signals for them to dismount the vehicle so they can be taken into custody or so they can interrogate them.
As the Iraqi soldiers continue to rant and wave for the soldiers to hop out of their truck, the group contemplates their next move.
“Sergeant, what do we next?” nervously asks Price as Reagal leans over to the cab to see whats going on.
At that very moment, Reagal decides to weigh in, “I think they want us to get off the truck. Screw that!” exclaims Reagal. Trevor tells his driver, Hunter, to turn on the vehicle spotlight and shine it on the Iraqi soldiers. Once he did this, it only made the soldiers angrier as one of them fired warning shots into the air before pointing their barrels back on Trevor’s vehicle.
After the shots rang out, Gilroy brings the hand mic down to his mouth and adds his opinion.
“I think we should get out and give up. They can help us,” exclaims Gilroy with confusion and fear in his voice.
Christopher snaps back at Gilroy, “Shut the hell up moron. We’re not getting out of this truck!”
Ringo stares at Gilroy and shakes his head in disgust.
“Hey Sergeant Wilcott, in my humble opinion, if they don’t move, I say we make them move,” boldy states Ringo.
“Exactly what I was thinking boy. I like the way you think. Hey Price, you red direct up there with that M240 Bravo?” aggresively asks Tr
evor.
“Negative Sergeant,” Price nervously exclaims. “Get cocked and ready to rock,” Trevor orders. “Hunter, start creeping up between the gap of the two vehicles and push them out of the way so we can clear it. Price, if they shoot at us, reign some fury down upon that ass. Got it?” Trevor instructs as he braces himself for contact.
Both soldiers respond with ‘roger’ as Hunter begins creeping forward. The sound of the bolt of a machine gun is heard cocking back while the charging handle is returned to it’s forward position and being placed on fire as a nervous Price takes aim.
Once the trucks move a few feet, all of the Iraqi soldiers begin frantically yelling and signaling for the truck to stop. Their last minute pleas go unheeded. One of the gunners on the Iraqi trucks begins opening fire with his weapon on cyclic into Trevor’s cab window.
The thick plexi glass stopped all of the rounds dead in it’s tracks. Price returns fire now as all of the Iraqi Army soldiers begins opening fire on the truck and duckin for cover.
Hunter slams the gas pedal down and roars right through two of the Iraqi Army vehicles nearly crushing them. Trevor’s vehicle makes a clean cut through as Price continues mowing down the soldiers with his crew served weapon from the turret. As the MRAP pushes through, Price is seen from the back spinning his turret around to the six o’clock position while his legs move to the other direction continueing to shoot.
Trevor could only count two soldiers that Price killed. However, upon ending the engagment as they drove off into the darkness without being pursued, Price claims he killed five more after punching through. Price begins kicking away the brass and links which fell from his turret into the cab to make room for himself to stand. Everybody in the back, with the exception of Gilroy, are cheering and yelling for joy while calling Price “a straight up killer”.
“Damn boys. Good shooting and good driving. Ya’ll admit it now, couldn’t of done it without my boyish good looks too,” a now relieved Trevor jokes as the MRAP races towards the outskirts of Safwan, near the border of Kuwait.
Price seems proud of himself as he stays silent and tries to downplay the incident. Everyone was proud of him because he performed well, even under fire and when the bullets were weezing past him and his turret shield. He still stayed there so he could defend the truck and return fire without dropping down.
Trevor’s vehicle continues rolling down the road with impunity as it approaches the off ramp into Safwan. Trevor notices burning houses and smoke trails filling up the sky towards the horizon of the village. Looks like the chaos reached here as well he concludes to himself as Hunter turns off the highway leading into Safwan.
As they roll into the edge of the town, Trevor orders Price to hold his fire unless absolutely necessary. The need to conserve ammo and not draw attention which is more important than racking up some kills is stressed to the rest of the squad by Trevor.
Price acknowledges Trevor as Hunter weaves around burning parked cars in the middle of the road leading into main downtown Safwan. The soldiers in the back of Trevor’s truck look out the windows as it glows with light from the engulfed burning houses around them. As they look out and Hunter continues to maneauver around more vehicles in the road, they notice mobs of people surrounding victims on the streets.
Admist the chaos, Trevor and his squad also notices the locals fighting over body parts which have been ripped out of victims such as arms and legs. The gory mess is a despicable sight to see as everyone in the back turn their heads with the exception of Ringo.
“Damn, it’s like a buffet out there!” Ringo says to the rest of the group from the back of the vehicle.
His comment was met by blank stares. As they slowly move down the road and try to push through the downtown area to hit the border crossing, they pass a nearby Mosque. Random civilians are seen running across the street in front of Trevor’s truck, however there is no way to be sure if they are still alive or one of those ‘things’ out there.
For the majority of the time they spent on this road, they remained unnoticed to the people outside who were caught up in their own feeding frenzies or chasing down victims on the street until the nearby Mosque’s speaker system begins going off with a man speaking Arabic. It appears to Trevor’s men that the man on the loudspeaker is a recording of a Muslim prayer, which is so loud it echos across the village and even to the outskirts of the surrounding area.
Right as Trevor’s vehicle passes the front door to the Mosque which is right next to the road they are on, the doors to the Mosque slam wide open. Hundreds of people begin spilling out of the front entry way into the street in a dead sprint screaming and moaning as if they were in horrorifc pain.
The mob set it’s sights on Trevor’s vehicle as the loud noise of the MRAP’s engine passed the door. They begin charging the truck while Trevor yells to Hunter to speed it up to avoid the crowd. A few members of the frantic screaming crowd attempt to jump up the side of the vehicle in order to grab Price.
Some are successful and met with a gunshot to the face by Price’s assault rifle. A few more hop on the hood of the vehicle as Hunter begins to pick up speed. Price quickly opens fire on them into the chest knocking them off the vehicle with a quickness. As Price looks back, the bodies he shot off the truck dissapear into the crowd behind him right after they stood back up after recently been shot at close range.
Once Hunter clears the last of the burning cars, he picks up his speed and leaves the frenzied mob of people back in the dust.
Reagal, continueing to lean over into the window to look out and observe the situation, comments. “It’s chaos out here. Like the end of times. Hey guys do you think it’s going on everywhere?” a curious Reagal asks Price and others members of the group as he looks on out the window in horror.
“Who knows. Don’t worry about that right now. Keep your mind focused on getting the hell out of here,” responds Trevor as he talks back into the headset and observes the road up ahead for any potential dangers.
Everyone is now silent as Hunter and Trevor ponder their next move as they push forward. The truck now appears to be approaching the entry way of a large compound with lots of semi-trailers and large trucks parked outside. Obviously, the main entry point into the secured area is abandoned with the gates wide open as bodies littered everywhere are in plain view for anyone to see.
Trevor and Hunter notices the long lines of abandoned big rig trucks who at one time was waiting to get scanned through an X-ray machine. This is the main indictator of how close they are now to the Kuwaiti border. As they push deeper into the compound, they notice mobile trailers which were used as offices for the staff who worked there scattered all around the now narrow road they are driving on. They follow the road up a ways as they pass dead bodies in the street.
Not alot of activity here at this point compared what they have just passed through only a mile or so down the road. Once the narrow road ends, it led them into a walled off compound where large black GMC SUV’s are parked in VIP parking areas.
Hunter reminds Trevor of how low they are on fuel. They would not be able to make it to Camp Buehring on the tank they are currently on. Trevor decides to pull the vehicle up to the SUV’s which are parked by the VIP area while they assess the situation. Price informs his squad members in the back of what is going on during this time.
After much chatter amongst the group and different options being verbally weighed, Trevor makes up his mind based on Christopher’s suggestion. This includes him and Ringo dismounting the vehicle while Price pulls security for them from the turret as they search the nearby SUV’s for keys.
If they are able to get one of those vehicles up, as well as acquiring a new vehicle with enough fuel, they would crossload all of the important equipment they need and just hot bed off the new ride. The group comes to an agreement and decide this is the best course of action as time for them to hitch a new ride is still possible before the mob whom chased them from the Mosque catches up to them.
Price picks up his scan in the turret as Ringo and Christopher braces themselves while Reagal opens the door for them upon receiving their ready nods. Ringo and Christopher hits the parking lot running with their weapons up pulling security. Ringo follows Christopher and covers his back as he checks the doors of the parked SUV’s. The ones which were locked, he avoided and went on to other vehicles to see if they were open to save time. A few vehicles pass by as Christopher ends up with a fruitless search and no results. Now appearing agitated, a frustrated Christopher begins knocking out some of the windows of the locked vehicles he passed up. Ringo tells him to quiet down and head for the last vehicle in the lot which he overlooked once his aggression set in. Christopher obliges and runs over to the vehicle Ringo pointed out.
Upon approaching the driver’s side door, Christopher opens it only to step back a few foot in shock as he bumps into Ringo whom continues to watch his back.
“Whats wrong man?” Ringo nervously asks Christopher.
“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” Christopher responds. Christopher came across a dead body inside the driver’s side of the cab leaned over head resting on the wheel. The man has a pistol in his hand and an apparent gunshot wound to the side of his head. He obviously took his own life. Ringo now glances back in Christopher’s direction noticing now what he had found. Ringo decides to ignore the corpse and continue pulling security for Christopher.
Christopher begins searching the dead Iraqi soldier’s pockets. After a thorough search, he ends up finding the keys to the vehicle. As a result, he grabs the dead driver by his hair and throws him out the vehicle to the pavement while entering the driver’s seat.
He nervously jiggles the keys as he attempts to quickly find the right one to start the vehicle. Once he does, he sticks it in the ignition and starts it up. To his surprise and joyful cheers, the vehicle’s engine fires up.
Christopher inspects the gauges and notices the fuel tank is on full. This is just what the group needs to make it down to Camp Buehring, Kuwait to safety. He quickly hops out and tells Ringo they are in the clear as they sprint back to the MRAP and bang on the back door. Reagal opens it eagerly asking them if they found a ride as they hop in. Upon hearing the good news, Hunter turns off the vehicle while the rest of them begin egressing the truck and grabbing all of their important equipment such as extra ammo, some minor food and water. They begin transfering it over to the new vehicle once Christopher showed them where it was located.