corners. We are out of the way of the door should anyone enter from our side. The green glow of the hall alternates in shades of lighter and darker greens where the light patterns differ. In our darkened corners, we wait with our thin beams of light reaching across the expanse and converging on the far doors. Time passes seemingly taking forever and I start thinking that perhaps I was wrong but the feeling still remains.
“Are you sure about this?” Greg asks after a while passes.
“No, not really but I still have the same feeling and…” I begin to say and pause as I see the far door swing open.
Three people step into the hall with the last one holding the door open. The other two pause not having the faintest clue that they have lasers, which can only be seen through our NVG’s, painting their chests. The third man hollers back through the door he’s holding open, “Tim, you lazy ass, we’re heading back.”
He shakes his head and closes the door. I’m not sure how they could have missed a blood smear or two but perhaps they didn’t look very hard. Most likely they only noticed their buddy was gone and assumed it was by his own volition. They start down the hall toward us with their rifles carried casually.
“You have the left, I’ll take the right. We both have the lummox in back. Wait for my call,” I say.
Our VOX allows us to talk without pressing the mic button and therefore doesn’t require any movement. The third person is partially hidden behind his buddies and us both taking the shot subsequently will increase the chances he will go down quickly after. It really depends on how the bodies of the two in front fall. I know we’re pretty well hidden but the one in front does have a flashlight, which he is holding haphazardly, and the beam is shining only a little ways in front of the group. They don’t really need it in the hall so he isn’t using it to light their way. If he does bring it up, we’ll be right in its path.
They walk on having snippets of conversation between them. Their boots striking the floor echoes off the concrete walls of the corridor. I feel my heart but control my breathing keeping my sight directly on the center of the man on the right’s chest. Greg’s beam holds steady. They have no idea what they are strolling toward. The flashlight beam begins to rise toward the door between Greg and me.
“Now,” I whisper putting tension on the trigger.
Two muffled barks join the echo of the steps in the hall. Our darkened corner erupts with two simultaneous flashes of light. Two sub-sonic rounds fly out from the once dark corners and converge quickly with their intended targets. The bullets enter each man’s chest and rip into the softer interior of their chest cavities, tearing through tissue and destroying veins and arteries. The pulverized rounds exit from different locations in their backs creating large exit wounds through which blood and pieces of organs spew outward. Each man is launched backward with a grunt and hits the ground with a thud. The flashlight spins upward in the air turning end over end. The third man looks at the man on his left, who was suddenly launched behind him to the ground, with a ‘What the fuck’ expression. He begins to turn to the other one when his head absorbs two rounds that sped outward shortly after the first two began their journey.
His face disappears behind a mist of blood. The two rounds do their extensive damage completely removing the back and side of his head. Blood, tissue, and bone shower the air behind him. He stands for a moment with his body disbelieving the fact that it is already dead and falls to the side. I am immediately on my feet rushing toward the downed bodies.
“You have the door. I’ve got these,” I say walking quickly toward the downed men with the barrel of my M-4 shifting minutely covering each of them.
One man on the left groans and attempts to roll over. I fire into his slightly raised head splattering the insides of it across the once clean floor. The spray makes a long pattern of a red, chunky mass across the linoleum. He immediately stops moving.
“Door’s clear,” Greg whispers.
The familiar smell of someone, or all of them, letting loose fills the hall by the bodies mingling with the iron smell of a vast amount of spilt blood. Death hangs over the area. Pools of blood surround the bodies along with red splash patterns on the walls. In all, it’s a mess. There’s no way to clean this up but I feel more of a calm settle knowing our back side is clear. I quickly check each of them for a radio and don’t find one. At least no one will be expecting a call or a response from them. I just really hope these people were actually doing wrong and we didn’t just take out five people just trying to survive, I think looking down at the bodies that were having a conversation just minutes ago.
I’ve done some things in the past I’m not terribly proud of and those moments haunt me from time to time. I don’t tell my stories, especially to my kids, because I’m trying to hide something from anyone. I don’t tell them because I’d rather not remember them myself. There was a lot we did right, but there were some that, looking back, perhaps wasn’t so right. I really wish I could look back and think every mission and everything we did was with us wearing a halo and unfurling our golden wings but that just isn’t true. Some were people who were just trying to do their job and get through another day. They were just at the wrong place at the wrong time and all because we wanted pieces of paper or information. Most of them were really scumbags though. I really hope that’s the case here.
I shake my head pulling back into myself. My game face, while never really leaving, returns. We have a long ways to go and the night has just begun. I begin dragging the bodies one by one toward the far door leaving wide streaks and swaths of blood and gore. Sweating, I load the last body into a laundry basket. There is no way to clean the hall effectively so I leave the streaks and puddles and rejoin Greg.
“Fuck, I’m already tired,” I say.
“Getting old are you?” Greg says with a smile.
“I’ll answer yes if that will make you carry me,” I answer.
He looks me up and down, “I don’t know if I could. You look like you’ve been eating everything that isn’t nailed down.”
“I don’t even have a good comeback to that so I’ll just resort to the old standby. Fuck off,” I say. I hear his chuckle as we swiftly and quietly make our way through the door and to the stairs once again.
“Elderly first,” he says holding the door to the stairs. I slap my ass implying he should kneel down and kiss it.
We step over the body and make our way up the stairs. A top landing leads to a short hall to the right with another security door at the end. Light shines through the small wire mesh window; dim, but brighter than the hall. I edge up to the window and peer through. The door leads to a small control room of some sort which overlooks a large area, and I mean a large area. The small room itself is dark with light coming from the large room. Swiping the key card, the door opens with a metallic click. Opening the door, a sudden loud voice comes from the room below. I freeze.
The voice continues as if orating and not a shout of discovery. I can’t make out the words from here, just that it is talking loudly. I ease into the room in a crouch with Greg right behind easing the door closed. A console of some sort occupies the room away from the door and large windows, again wire mesh, look out. Each side of the room has a door leading to a catwalk that surrounds the entire room below. Other small rooms, like the one we’re in, are situated on each wall with the catwalk connecting each one. The room below isn’t brightly lit but it is well enough to see by. We lift our NVG’s and peek over the edge of the console.
Below us, the room is absolutely vast complete with a jogging track, basketball courts, a place for weights and tables. It looks like this is the prisoners “outside” yard. In the middle of the vast room, a man stands on wooden boxes addressing a large group of about thirty men, the majority armed with AR-15-style weapons. Another group of about ten stands behind the man holding their weapons. While not at the ready, they aren’t relaxed either.
The one thing that catches my attention is another man being held between two others in from of the man orating. The held man has his head hanging down and it appears he is being held upright by the two men at his side. Another man stands in front of the one being held staring up at the orator. All in all it doesn’t look like anything pretty is happening down there.
“Shall we hear what he has to say?” I ask nodding toward one of the doors.
“My curiosity is peaked,” Greg answers.
I open the door that is on the other side of the group of people below us. Luckily the door opens inward or it would be easy for the movement to catch the eye of the man on the makeshift podium and those behind him. Lowering ourselves to the ground, Greg and I crawl side by side onto the catwalk, holding the door open with our legs. The man’s voice takes on actual words.
