The Lost Journal (A Secret Apocalypse Story) (2 page)

We found the boy inside. Strangely, he was standing on the far side of the room. He was facing the corner. The light was poor inside but it looked like he was banging his head against the mud wall.

His arms were bound in front of his body. His legs were tied together at the knees and ankles. His mouth was gagged.

When the boy heard us enter the room, he slowly turned his head in our direction, looking over his shoulder but not looking directly at us. He appeared to be drooling. Again, I couldn’t be sure but it appeared that his face was covered in mud. And it appeared that his drool had mixed with the mud, turning it a dark brown color.

Gordon called out to the boy but he didn’t answer.

Franco then tried a few slight variations of a basic greeting speaking in Persian and then Pashto. But the boy didn’t respond to anything.

When we moved closer, the boy tried to turn around, but because his feet were bound together he fell over in a heap on the dirt floor.

Gordon moved over to the boy and conducted a basic medical examination. He checked the boy’s vital obs. He shined a torch into his eyes. They were sunken and wild. Frantic. The boy’s gaze was firmly locked on to Gordon.

"I can’t find a heartbeat," Gordon said. "Or a pulse for that matter."

"What? How is that possible?" I asked.

"Usually means the heart is beating very fast. Combined with low blood pressure."

During the examination the boy became more and more agitated. And more and more violent. He kept trying to bite through the gag. Again, I couldn’t be sure but it looked like he was drooling blood. It was very dark in color. Almost black. And very thick, like it was coagulated.

Drake and I moved over to help Gordon. Drake held his feet. I held his arms. Drake’s a pretty big guy; he had played high school and college football. But even he was struggling to keep the boy’s legs under control. At first he was using just one hand. But then he had to use both hands. And then soon after that, Drake was using his entire body, almost as if he was laying across the boys legs.

As we pinned the boy down on the dirt ground, his movements became even more violent. He started to resemble a fish out of water. Flapping wildly. Constantly struggling.

Franco was trying to radio back to Command. But he couldn’t get a signal.

I had my full weight pushed down on the boy’s wrists, pinning them down on the ground, so they were above his head. But he continued to struggle. A second later, I heard a snap and a loud crack. The noise was so loud I actually jumped back and let go of the boy.

In his struggle to get free, the boy had snapped both his arms at the elbow.

Amazingly he didn’t seem to notice. There was no recognition of pain whatsoever.

He kept fighting us. And I know it sounds crazy but he was getting stronger, even after he had just broken both of his arms. His right forearm was bent at a sickening angle. And on his left arm the bone had pierced right through the skin. Dark blood oozed around the open wound.

This was bad. Out here, in these conditions, death by infection was a real danger. This kid needed medical help immediately.

But he continued to struggle, he kept fighting against us. And when he didn’t stop, when he showed no signs of letting up, we all backed away. The boy didn’t display any recognition of his injuries, or the immense amount of pain that a compound fraction would cause.

His condition was beyond any amount of first aid training Gordon had received.

We moved out of the room. We shut the door and ordered some of the villagers to barricade the hut again.

Franco continued to call for help, for a medical chopper. It was the only option. There was no point in subduing the child or putting his arms in a makeshift splint. He’d be dead in a week.

"Still can’t get a damn signal," Franco said as he kept trying. "We need a medivac for a civilian child. Male. Approximately ten years of age. Suffering from, ah, two broken arms. Compound fracture."

The radio was full of static.

"Let me try," Gordon said. "Talk to the mother. See if you can get some answers. I want to know what the hell is going on."

Franco and I asked the mother more questions. Well, Franco did most of the interrogating. Not that he was getting very far. It’s a painful thing, trying to conduct a conversation whilst speaking only bits and pieces of a language.

"Has the boy eaten anything poisonous?" Franco asked. "How long has he been sick?"

The mother was trying to understand us, trying to answer our questions through a mess of tears. But she kept choking up on every second word.

We were getting nowhere.

The rest of the villagers had crowded around. A group of men had finished barricading the door.

I couldn’t be sure but over the noise of nails being hammered into the wooden door and the mother crying and wailing, I thought I could hear a thumping noise. This noise sounded like it was coming from inside the mud hut.

Was the boy knocking on the door? Was he banging into the door? How? Both of his arms were broken.

There was so much going on. I kinda felt like I was in the middle of a storm, a tornado. We were surrounded by the villagers. They seemed to be all talking at once, shouting at us, and waving their arms at us. They all looked worried, afraid.

One of the older men broke through the crowd. He pointed up into the ridge of the valley. He shouted something. The villagers then dispersed and took cover. A split second later gun fire erupted. Shots echoed throughout the tiny valley.

We all took cover as bullets smashed into the dirt ground and the mud-brick buildings around us.

Now it was clear. The penny finally dropped. We had been led into a trap.

They had done this type of thing before. We had been briefed and warned about this ambush technique when we first arrived here.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda. They use innocent villagers as bait. They would target towns and areas that were ‘friendly’ towards U.S. forces. They would usually poison the water supply. When a patrol team goes to investigate, they pounce.

They had set up two machine gun nests; one on each side of the valley, pinning us down. They had the high ground and they had the fire power.

We were trapped.

We should’ve been prepared. But the boy was so sick. It was shocking. We had been completely and totally distracted. We had taken the bait.

Gordon was back on the radio, asking for air support.

We took up defensive positions around the small village and returned fire. Luckily Drake and I were both packing m249’s, SAW machine guns (Squad Automatic Weapons). It was sheer luck that I decided to take it with me instead of my usual M40 sniper rifle. Having two Squad Automatic Weapons was a great luxury. Probably saved our lives. We were able to return a pretty effective line of suppressive fire.

At that point we were just hoping they didn’t have any mortar rounds or any grenades. If they did, they would reduce this tiny village to dust in a matter of seconds.

Luckily they didn’t. They were basically taking pot shots. Shooting and hoping.

Gordon eventually got through to command. He requested immediate air support and a medivac for the boy.

We were able to hold them back for another thirty minutes or so before a couple of gunships showed up. Apache helicopters. When we heard their rotor blades echo through the valley we all gave out a cheer.

They flew in low and fast. Gordon was able to give ground support and advise the pilots, helping them locate their targets.

The Apaches unleashed a couple of hell fire missiles each and that was the end of the skirmish.

The choppers were gone as quickly as they had appeared.

After the brief encounter we were back on our feet. The villagers emerged from their homes.

The boy’s mother was there, waiting, pleading with her eyes for some good news.

But there was nothing good to tell her. We had no idea what was wrong with her son. We had no idea what he had been poisoned with.

I did not want to be the one to tell her that her son was probably dying.

A few minutes later Command finally confirmed the ETA of medical chopper. Soon after the Apaches had cleared out, the medivac arrived with a full team of doctors and first aid staff. They went back in an examined the boy again.

We were asked various questions by the doctor in charge.

How long had he been in there? When did we arrive? Was anyone hurt during the skirmish? Did anyone receive bullet wounds or shrapnel wounds? Or open wounds of any kind?

Luckily no one had suffered any injuries. And luckily it was just the boy who had been poisoned. Apparently he had been poisoned with a powerful neurotoxin. The toxin was the reason for the violent, sporadic movements and the loss of feeling in his limbs.

Hopefully, the medical team would be able to pump the boy’s stomach, get him on a drip and flush the neurotoxin out of his body. Not to mention fixing that nasty compound fracture.

But the village seemed to have gotten off lightly.

Twenty minutes later, the boy was removed from the hut. He was taken away on a stretcher. His arms and legs were still bound. And he was tied down to the stretcher.

The chopper flew up and out of the valley. And we were left behind, forced to trek about eight miles to a separate extraction point. The boy’s mother continued to cry, wailing to the point of exhaustion.

The other villagers carried her off and helped her back to her home.

As we walked away and began the trek back down the mountain to our base, we could still hear her crying for her son.

I don’t know why this has had such a huge effect on me. I’ve been in worse situations in my short time here. I’ve confronted my own mortality on multiple occasions. But since that incident I haven’t been able to sleep.

The psychologist said it was because I saw myself in the boy. I was struggling and fighting. I was raging.

She said I saw my own mother in the swollen, red eyes of the boy’s mother.

She said I was angry because I had cut myself off from my parents and because I’d left without saying goodbye to Rebecca, for not telling her how I felt.

She said I wouldn’t be able to move on until I had sought forgiveness.

Redemption.

I needed to be aware of this.

I hope she is right.

Jan 12th - Run in with Green Berets.

Actually I don’t know if they were Green Berets or not. But that’s what they called themselves. Apparently they had been operating in some of the more isolated areas of the Hindu Kush mountain range for over a month. They had been helping the local villagers build better shelters, teaching the men and some of the older boys shooting techniques and basic defensive strategies.

But there was something about them I didn’t like.

I don’t know. I didn’t fully trust them. It’s hard to explain. There was something about their body language. And their weak cover story about the men they had locked up in that crappy little mud hut. The men were just lying in there on the dirt floor. No beds, no blankets. The walls and the roof were made of mud and straw. There was no heating. It was the middle of winter for crying out loud. No wonder they were sick. No wonder they weren’t getting any better.

The Special Forces team claimed their prisoners were connected to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. That was how they justified it.

I’m not a huge expert on the Geneva Convention or anything but I’m pretty sure those men were being mistreated.

Anyway, the reason we had been sent out there was because Command had received another distress call from a village about fifteen miles from where we found the sick boy. They’d tried to radio back and confirm but they had lost contact.

Apparently there was a Special Forces team – Green Berets, who had been operating in the area. We were to take a chopper ride back up into the mountains, rendezvous with them, check out the situation and report back.

The Blackhawk chopper dropped us about five miles outside of the village and we made our way slowly towards the camp. As always, the mountainous terrain made it difficult to move. There was a cold wind blowing in from the north.

All of the surrounding mountains were covered in snow. The jagged peaks, gave the impression of crooked, razor sharp teeth.

At this point, summer was a distant memory. Hundred degree heat waves were a distant memory. It had been a particularly harsh winter so far. On average the temperature was at freezing or a few degrees below. But in reality it felt a lot colder, especially when you took the wind chill factor into consideration.

We pulled up about a half mile out from the village. I picked out a point a cover and tried to get a look at our rendezvous point. Today I had my M40 sniper rifle with me.

I looked through the scope.

The village appeared to be quiet. There was no sign of activity or enemy contact.

Gordon crouched down next to me. "What can you see?"

"Not much. Looks pretty quiet. No signs of artillery fire or anything."