The Last Words

CHAPTER ONE

We were outside Kabul, taking heavy fire from all sides when I heard the Chinook coming in in the dark of night.

The thud thud thud pushing the smoke away, the smoke that was coming from all sides, covering us to some extent but also in my eyes and nose. Burning my eyes, the smoke and my sweat and some other gas in the air, something not good, making it hard to see much less shoot.

“Tell them to back off,” I hollered. “It’s too hot.”

“What?”

“Tell them to back the fuck off, it’s too fucking hot,” I yelled at Wallace, our comm guy.

This was a supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission, in and out, nothing to it. Just supposed to find out if a particular high ranking insurgent was here in the area. He was.

“OK, OK, red to yellow, back the copter off.”

Another burst from below interrupted him. AKs, always AKs, you could bury those things in sand, piss on them, drop them from the roof, they would still fire.

Another round from below. I returned fire. The roof wasn’t the best place for us but it was the only place the big Chinook could land. Someone had turned on us, let ’em know where we are. One of our local contacts.

“Repeat, back the copter off, we are under heavy fire.”

“Negative, sir,” they squawked back. “I’m under orders to reel you in.”

There were only three of us, half our SEAL platoon, but I knew the chopper had a whole other platoon aboard. Couldn’t risk it.

“I said back off, right fucking now pilot. You have a whole ’nother platoon in there.”

“OK, hold steady platoon blue 6 is coming in to give cover fire.”

Good, they could come up from the other side, distract them, maybe we could get to the chopper and get out safe.

When I figure out who betrayed us I’m going to fucking flay them.

The Chinook started lifting again and that’s when the RPG hit it square in the side. I saw it like it was in slow motion, the rocket puncturing the metal, the fireball coming out the other side. Then the whole thing went up in a fireball, not even a chance for the guys inside. The blades were still going, lifting without the rest of the Chinook, both big top rotors going straight up into the air. I actually saw the pilot just…incinerate, there, then gone, a shadow of a skeleton for a second.

I could feel the shock and knew the heat was coming but never felt it; instead I caught a glimpse of something dark heading my way out of the fireball and the next thing I know I woke up here.

In a hospital.

I jumped out of bed realizing immediately that my clothes felt wrong, civilian clothes? I heard an explosion in the distance and felt the adrenaline coming back up. I looked for my gun. Nope, no guns. I went to a barred window and looked out. A city, but it didn’t look like Kabul, smoke was rising in various areas so it had to be somewhere still in Iraq. Maybe I was in a military hospital.

I looked around my room, it looked mostly like a typical hospital room, except the door was thick, metal, with a small reinforced window and a slot that looks like it would be used to pass food through. A prison? Had I been captured? But, the door was wide open.

I looked around some more; there were some knives and tools in the room. They wouldn’t have left those with me. So maybe I wasn’t a prisoner. But to be safe I grabbed two knives before leaving the room. It still looked like a hospital, but there were more thick doors along a hallway to my left, and these were closed. To my right it looked like the hallway opened up. I chose this way. It turned out to be some kind of common room with couches, tables, chairs. And it still had more the feel of a hospital than a prison. This common room had larger windows, still reinforced, that looked out at…

This was not Kabul. This did not look like any city in Iraq I had seen. There was smoke coming out of various parts of the city, true, but there were way too many buildings, tall buildings, skyscrapers. And some were familiar. I have seen this city before. It was New York. “What the hell?” escaped my lips before I could stop it.

I heard someone move in one of the rooms and was immediately at the ready, blood pumping, ears alert, knives positioned.

It came from the hallway to the right. I was barely able to keep myself from yelling “who’s there”. I snuck down the hallway as quietly as I could, trying to figure out which room it came from. Then something slammed into the door next to me, and it screamed. My heart skipped and I retreated to the other side of the hall against another door, but something slammed into that one too and was I back out in the middle of the hall again, turning around, sweating, heart throbbing. More things slammed into the doors in some of the rooms down the hall and they all started screaming. I could see some of them; they looked human, banging their heads against the small windows on the doors until they were leaving blood on the glass. Then at the end of the hall I saw an iron gate and bars, and people who appeared to be sleeping in a big pile on the other side of the bars were getting up and screaming too while trying to reach through the gates. They were people. But they weren’t. They were bloody and their clothes were ripped and their faces appeared cut up and some were even salivating. But the least human thing of all was their eyes. Their eyes were wild, ferocious, animal eyes.

I started hearing words in the screams: worm, rye, moth, bear. Just random words here and there but then it evolved into a chant; worm milk chest mouth wound sea…they were chanting the words together, but it still didn’t make any sense.

“Jude, good you’re awake,” said a doctor I didn’t know who seemed to know me as he came from the other direction. He was tall, older, graying, glasses and wild eyes with big bags under them. Disheveled as hell. He looked like shit.

“Come on, come away from there,” he said. He didn’t seem terribly disturbed by the screaming people.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Dr. Gates. Come on Jude, come away from there.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Read your journal to catch up then I’ll tell you what I think I’ve figured out. I’ve been up all night, of course.”

Journal?

“Don’t worry about them, we’re safe. Just read your journal.”

“Journal? I don’t have a fucking journal.”

“Yes you do. Start three days ago, that should get you up to speed. Then check your quick notes.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Jude, check the time.”

I looked at my watch, the date was way off. Then I saw them.

Tattoos. Tattoos I didn’t remember getting.

Jude, don’t panic, you’re safe. You had an injury and now you have a really really bad memory. Turn your arm over.

I did

It will be OK. Just exercise then read your journal

I don’t have a fucking journal. Someone was fucking with me.

But I did, it was rolled up and tucked into my pocket. Worn, like I kept it folded like this often, and had handled it often. I opened it to the first page and knew it was my writing. Small, concise, efficient if a little hurried, but unmistakably mine, and it said things I didn’t remember writing. I started to read while moving towards the doctor and away from the… whatever they were, then remembered what the doctor said and found the last entry, then counted back three days from there.