Nightmare-Z

by S. A. Lowry

  The fear and paranoia sets in as Hunter awaits the inevitable.

  Ringo barrells through the sand with impunity as he races to find a break in the road to bypass the jammed up highway. Ringo knows what to do and doesn’t need to ask any questions. He knows now isn’t the right time anyway. He looks over at Trevor as he places his head down in sorrow. Trevor appears to want to cry, however, falls short of it. Moments go by as they move. As Price scans and Christopher looks out his window off onto the road they are paralleling, they notice more individuals popping out of the vehicles to pursue them on foot as they pass by. Christopher realizes they never would have made it if Ringo didn’t find this vehicle.

  Miles go on, endless miles of continued dead military vehicles. The drive is long and quiet. Ringo maneuvors through the sand and avoids the dunes and dips. At some parts, he has to slow down and back track to avoid decieving drops in the sand which may get their vehicle stuck. He is successful in all aspects of this as he keeps the truck moving. Their hope and their only life line at this point.

  Another twenty minutes breeze by. Hunter is looking up at Price from his trunk seat as he watches him scan and spin the turret in the direction of the disabled vehicles along the road. He notices Price look down at him once or twice. This startles Hunter for he doesn’t know whether or not Price witnessed what he had done or was too busy looking down his sight engaging their pursuers. One thing is for sure though, he will never mention it to him or anybody unless he is confronted.

  “Hey Sergeant, check it out,” Ringo states as he slows down to a creeping pace. Trevor raises his head up from being deep in thought about losing Gilroy. He looks in the direction Ringo pointed to.

  “Well will you look at that,” Price exclaims from the turret barely being heard by the others from inside the cab. Trevor moves his eyes to where Ringo pointed. What he sees is a military fueler turned over on it’s side blocking the entire road. From there, all the traffic formed on down all the way back to Camp Virginia.

  “So what. A ten to twenty mile traffic jam? All over a damned fueler! Wow!” states Reagal.

  Trevor tells him to go around it and get on the road.

  Ringo complies. Once the truck hits pavement, Ringo increases speed. The ride will be smooth and steady now Ringo tells himself as he presses down on the throttle. The situation inside the cab still seems gloomy as no one commences in conversation. All of them seem to be strung up over Gilroy’s fate. Ringo is good at blocking things out, especially tragic events. He pays it no mind or thought.

  Some time goes by on the road. As the group fast approaches the last and only base along the Kuwait border, Ali Asaleem, Ringo asks his squad leader what he wants to do. Trevor tells Ringo to pull up to the front and stop short of entering. A few minutes pass by until Ringo positions the vehicle where Trevor wants it and comes to a screeching halt. Trevor opens his door and looks into the ECP of the base.

  Smoke clouds can be seen billowing up into the sky from the base. So many in fact, that is seems the entire base is on fire. Trevor notices remnants of the previous bases they were just at evidently just from watching this current gate alone. Abandoned guard towers, bullet casings was too much of an indictator and warning to stay out. Trevor learned his lesson the first two times.

  Coming to this realization, there appears to be only one more hope. Trevor decides not to risk it. Especially after losing one of their own. He quickly hops back in his seat and tells Ringo to drive.

  “Where to?” Ringo curiously asks. “Kuwait City my friend. To the Air Force Base. Hopefully we can catch the last freaking flight out of this hell hole,” Trevor states with uncertainty as he reaches down into his leg pocket and pulls out an Ultra Light to smoke.

  “What other option do we have?” he asks Ringo.

  “Nicely put, Sergeant,” Ringo responds as he puts the vehicle into drive and takes off. Reagal looks to Christopher for some type of comment or response. Christopher notices Reagal’s eyes on him waiting for reassurance. Christopher glances back and nods his head as a worried Reagal looks on. Hunter carelessly keeps his eyes closed and fails to comment. Price gives Trevor a round count as a result and the truck moves on pushing to the main super highway of Kuwait which runs down to the Air Force Base in Kuwait city which all major flights enter and leave out of.

  Some time goes by until the truck is able to merge onto the main freeway from the Highway of Death. Once they find the road, the soldiers go into instant defense mode again and are able to slowly get their heads back in the game. Price begins to pick up his scan with ferocity while Christopher, Reagal and Trevor drop their windows down and prop their barells out for security.

  As the truck hits the road, Trevor begins calling out possible threats they pass by such as lone cars along side the road and people walking around on the shoulder. Not knowing whether or not they are human or one of those ‘things’.

  Ringo picks up his speed even more. There appears to be some vehicles on the road, going higher rates of speed than their vehicle are able to accomplish. As Trevor looks out his window, he notices fires off into the distance of the developed housing areas and commercial buildings. Mass panic and hysteria is alive here too. People can be seen fleeing on foot with their luggages. Burning civilian vehicles are also seen on the shoulder of the roads with bodies laid out beside them which was quite a common sight at this point as they pushed on to their destination.

  Kuwaiti Police can be seen with their sirens and flashing lights quickly racing down the side roads. In addition, gunfire and explosions can be heard into the neighborhoods as they pass by them along the freeway. Half hour into the ride, the truck passes a mass crowd of Kuwaiti civilians with their bags, luggages and children in their arms desperately trying to flag down any vehicle that would pick them up. Some desperate hitch hikers also began throwing themselves out into traffic to force somebody to stop for them in a desperate attempt. Ringo just went around them per Trevor’s orders.

  Christopher stares out his window with his barrell pointed out as he sees women and children kneeling onto the ground with their dead husbands in their hands screaming and pleading in the truck’s direction for them to help because they are soldiers and their job is to protect civilians. At least that is how Christopher felt as the guilt grew ever larger in him as he couldn’t help any of the people he saw. The deeper into Kuwait they drove, the more built up the areas became along side the freeway. That is when they started noticing less alive people and more dead ones.

  Bodies scattered the roads. Some of them stumbling around as well as feasting on the ones still laying there. A few times Ringo had to cross over onto the oncoming lanes to bypass traffic jams and mobs of people consuming the road. Unaware whether or not they are alive or dead.

  At one point, after avoiding multiple crowds of people who blocked the road out of desperation and who were only miles apart, Ringo quickly realized that the Kuwaiti civilians in the area grew more desperate the further south they pushed.

  At one point, when Ringo decided to swerve lanes in order to avoid an additional crowd later on down the road, another crowd of frantic survivors would appear on the opposite lane blocking Ringo’s path to move forward. They refused to move as well when Price decided to fire multiple warning shots into the air with his crew served weapon in an attempt to sway their opinion.

  After much deliberation and arguing amongst the group as the pedestrations drew closer to the vehicle, Ringo decided to settle the argument and bickering by taking it upon himself to accelerate the throttle right into the crowds of civilians whom blocked his path.

  The desperate men, women and children decided to make a stand in order to secure themselves a ride. However, all of them who stood in the path of Ringo, clearly under estimated his willingness to survive at all costs.

  Ringo slammed his vehicle into the crowd boldly as bodies could be felt smashing the bumper and the sides of the armour. Nobody in the cab said a word to Ringo for doing what had to be done.
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  As they moved forward after finally clearing the mob, Price looked back from the turret and noticed dozens of innocent civilians laying down on the pavement in pain. Some moving while attending their injures, others not so much as they laid there solid as a rock.

  As the drive grows longer and longer, the sun begins to set and nightfall reigns. Still having their helmets in posession, Trevor asks if every still had their PVS-14’s(night vision goggles), Rhino and J-Arm(night vision mount accessories). Everyone does. As a result, Trevor orders them to don their Night vision and turn their PEQ-15 infrared lasers on for night time target engagments as he looks down the road and inspects for it’s uncertainties. Once night falls and everything goes black, tracer fire and flashes can be seen off into the distance as well. The situation seems to grow worse the further south they push to their destination This fact is apparent now to all of them as chatter is delt to a minimum. Everybody on the truck is so worried at this point not even Reagal himself can crack a joke.

  At this point, Trevor struggles to identify the right turn off for the airport. He has been here so many times, yet the route still seems murky in his mind. As the truck stays on the main freeway, the ground begins to rise up indicating they are driving up a hill. As they approach higher, Price notices helicopters off into the distance shooting missiles and vulcan cannons into the city from the air. It is unclear whether or not they are American or Kuwaiti Army.

  The night time Kuwait City skyline, as they approach, appears to be engulfed in flames. Not good news for Trevor and his men, however, still one hell of a sight he concludes as he braces himself for what he may encounter once Ringo breaks the top of the hill. Once the vehicle reaches the top, the road begins curving left leading to a bridge which has another highway running beneath it.

  Price begins yelling back to Trevor and Ringo that he thinks he spots the base. Also in addition, he sees what appears to be the lights of a Boeing 757 on the runway getting ready to take off as the turbine engines can be heard running from their location. Price looks closer through his night vision and quickly realizes that he can read the big gigantic letters on the side of the plane which reads, “World Airways”.

  Once he informs the group of this, all of them cheer in excitement. Hunter awakes from his nap in shock screaming asking what happened. Reagal tells him they found a plane.

  Trevor orders Ringo to take the turn off after crossing the bridge and to take the off-ramp leading to the road below. Ringo follows suite. Once merging onto the next road, the group notices a straight distance to the fenced off and barbed wire protected perimeter of the Air Force Base. Once Ringo hits this straight away, he floors the gas pedal. Racing and weaving around cars trying to beat him there. Shortly after, he encounters a traffic circle, which he circles around twice awaiting Price to give him the right directions to go down in order to make it to the entrance of the base.

  After the second loop, Price goes with his instinct the best he could. The light poles and fires off into the distance rendered his night vision capability useless due to the glare. Once Ringo committs to the road Price put his word behind to the best of his ability, he picks up speed once again.

  A few minutes go by until Trevor begins noticing the “warning” signs and “military checkpoint” ahead. These were all good signs for it indicated that they were going in the right direction. The candle of hope which has been slowly burning out has been re-lit for Trevor. His eyes are now widened and unable to blink. He sits propped up in his seat leaning forward waiting to see what lies ahead.

  As Ringo continues to push forward, Price notices something between them and the main entrance of the base. Price quickly notices a crowd of hundreds of Kuwaiti civilians trying to break through. He yells at Ringo to halt. The anxious squad members below keep asking Price what he sees, only to get a response from the sound of the turret spinning back and fourth. Most of the glare has gone away. As a result, Price can see further now than Ringo and Trevor whom have the thick dirty plexi glass of the humvee windshield blocking a clear view.

  “I see so many people. It’s bad. Looks like they are trying to break through the entrance. I’m only seeing a handful of guards keeping them at bay and they aren’t doing that great of a job. They won’t hold them off for long,” Price exclaims in a worried tone of voice.

  Right when Trevor was about to say something, the sounds of Price screaming and yelling fills the cab.

  “Oh shit. Get back! Get the hell back!” yells Price. Machine gun fire from Price’s weapon soon follows to the vehicle’s 12 o’clock. Ringo and Trevor spot multiple people jumping on to the hood of their vehicle and others surrounding their doors trying to open them. Luckily, all of Trevor’s squad members engaged the combat locks inside. Price quickly shoots the people off the hood of the truck at point blank with the M2.

  “Back up Ringo! Back up!” yells Price. Ringo quickly throws it in reverse and slams into a vehicle which just positioned itself behind the humvee. This throws Price forward and back inside the turret slightly injuring him. Price continues to curse out in pain. Ringo eventually pushes forward and runs over a few more indivuduals while Price continues to engage with effective automatic fire. Ringo pops a U-turn and heads back in the opposite direction. Price thinks he identified a side road back at the traffic circle they can take that would lead them along the perimeter fenceline. Trevor tells him to take it. Once they clear the traffic circle, they now are the lone vehicle along the perimeter fenceline road. Trevor tells Ringo to speed up so they can get the vehicle lined up with the fencline of the plane, which is a good five to six hundred meters across the tarmac runway from the fenceline.

  Once Trevor identifies the piece of fence he wants to smash through, he tells everyone inside the cab to brace themselves. Christopher immediately grabs Price’s ACU belt and rips him down into the cab and tells him to hold on.

  Ringo picks up speed and banks right, then left. Once he swings it left on the wheel everyone braces for impact into the fenceline.

  “Ohhhhhhh Shiitttttttttt!!!!!!” Reagal yells in horror as he sinks into his seat and maintains four points of contact. That is when the vehicle crashes face first into the perimeter fenceline of the airport. Upon smashing through the fenceline, everyone inside places their heads down and braces for impact, including Ringo who still keeps his hands on the wheel. What they did not expect, however, was the fact that just beyond the fencline lied a six foot drop filled with steel tank traps and strands of barbed wire.

  The vehicle punches the fence with ease. Wire scrapping up the gun up top and penetrating through the turret. Their vehicle ended up landing nose first into the drop in between two tank traps. An additional tank trap appeared to be blocking Reagal and Ringo’s side door. Also, wire now runs around the vehicle and the tank traps making it almost virtually impossible to move without being cut up.

  Trevor and his men inside, all seem to be dazed and confused at the sudden impact and way they landed but quickly come to. Trevor asks if everyone is alright. Once everyone responds, his door puts up a slight struggle before he is able to kick the two hundred and fifty pound up armoured door open. Christopher does the same. Reagal and Ringo try to get out unsuccessfully and decide to crawl through on Trevor and Christopher’s side after Price and Hunter got through.

  Once Trevor crawls his way out and makes it outside, he is met with the uninviting sounds of gunfire and loud screams from mobs of people not too far off into the distance. It’s pure chaos outside as bombs from helicopters are heard thumbing off into the distance of the city. Trevor helps Ringo out as Christopher helps the remaining members of the squad out as well. Once everyone is out of the vehicle, they shimmy their way through the wire which tangles them and begins cutting up their arms and legs. Trevor struggles to make it up from the ditch to the top where the tarmac awaits. Instead of struggling on two legs, he tosses his weapon up and crawls on all fours sinking his fingers into the sand as if they were cargo nets. Eventually, he reaches the top.
Once up top, he lies on his stomach and places his hand down for the rest to grab on to him so he can hoist them up.

  Once the last man comes out, which is Reagal, he tells him to “hurry that ass up!”

  Reagal smiles back with dirt and sand all over his face after being cut dozens of times by the wire and proceeds to make a sarcastic comment.

  “You know theres a reason why we always made Hunter drive. Am I the only one who noticed that?” Reagal exclaims with a painful smile.

  Christopher tells him to shut his damn mouth and to hurry up while on the tarmac being unseen to Reagal.

  “Geez that guy is everywhere!” Reagal adds as Trevor hoists him up. Once Reagal is to the top, he dusts himself off and gathers himself for a minute while the rest of the squad looks on at the developing situation over by the gate across the way. “Hey Sergeant, um, we better get rolling,” softly states Price as he stares off into the direction of the gate and into the distance as he witnesses the main fenceline which supports the front gate collapse by a mob of hundreds of Kuwaitis.

  The gate guards, three of them in all apparently holding rifles, are seen turning around and high tailing it off into the other direction of the gate towards the awaiting aircraft getting ready to take off. Hundreds of people storm across the tarmac towards the plane while apparently pursueing the gate guards as well.

  “Lets go! Lets go now sprint!” yells Trevor. Everyone picks up in a desperate sprint across the long and wide night time tarmac. The soldiers are in a mad dash to beat the rest of the crowd to the steps of the plane, if they are even still there which is unknown to Trevor and his men. It’s a long shot, but it will have to do Trevor tells himself as he desperately moves his legs to the best of his ability. The fastest he has ever ran in life he concludes. If it never mattered before, it will tonight. Everyone in the squad continues to run for their life across the runway.