Tales of the Forgotten (4 page)

“Wow,
you should have just opened the door and let us help,” gasped Hasan as he
looked at all of the primal bodies lying in the courtyard.

“You
OK buddy?” asked Sean, extending his hand to Brad.

“I’m
fine, but next time somebody else goes over the wall first,” Brad said, taking
Sean’s hand and being pulled to his feet.

The
team got themselves together and slowly approached the open door. All of the
first floor windows of the villa had been boarded shut, and the windows on the
second floor had the drapes tightly closed. They inspected the bodies on the
ground and found them to look the same as the ones recently found in Hairatan:
emaciated, with skin taut over their bones. The team stepped past them and
stacked up on the door.

“Probably
not much in there after all the noise Brad made, but you can never be too
careful,” Sean said. “Brad, you go right with me, Brooks, take Hasan to the
left.” The men gave thumbs up, and Sean turned on the light attached to his
MP5. The rest of the team followed suit and they entered the dark doorway.

Brad
followed Sean into a large empty foyer, while behind him Brooks and Hasan
entered and cut to the left and moved out of sight. Sean moved quickly and
efficiently swept the room, then waited beside a door for Brad before he
entered the next. Forcefully swinging open doors, they swept into rooms
checking all of the corners. They continued like this until they met Brooks and
Hasan back at the main entrance.

With
the full team once again joined, they formed back into a line. The stairs
leading to the second story were offset into a wall at the back of the foyer.
Sean gave a hand signal and the men stacked up at the base of the stairs and
began their ascent toward the top. When they reached the open space at the head
of the stairs they fanned out, each man covering a sector.

The
team entered a large, sparsely furnished sitting room. What furniture there was
had been tossed randomly around the space. Sean walked to an outer wall and
ripped down a set of the heavy drapes covering a window, letting sunlight flood
in and over the floor. There were bloody bandages and rags piled in a corner,
and what looked to be empty food containers and dishes in another. “The things
Brad killed in the courtyard must have sought shelter here when still human,”
mumbled Hasan.

“Yeah,
probably wounded; they barricaded themselves seeking refuge from whatever was
outside the gate while they slowly turned themselves,” Brad answered back.

They
said little while they walked back downstairs. Brad and Hasan dragged the
primals’ bodies to a far corner of the courtyard. They opened the heavy wooden
door as wide as it would go and backed the Defender into the safety of the
walls, closing the door behind them and locking the bolt.

They
found very little else of use in the home. Upstairs, Hasan found a worn Enfield
rifle and a bandoleer of ammo to match. He propped it carefully inside the
entry door to the house, deciding he didn’t need it and would leave it for a
future visitor. None of the team had any interest in sleeping in the house, so
they spread their bedrolls in the courtyard and, using dried wood, built a
smokeless fire just large enough to heat their dinner. Brad volunteered to take
the first watch. He climbed atop the Defender and settled into a comfortable
position where he could see over the wall.

5.

As
the sun gradually dropped below the horizon, the temperature began to drop with
it. Darkness came quickly and was accompanied by the howling of the primals.
Brad was disappointed to hear them; he had hoped they would be things of the
city and wouldn’t venture out into the desert as much. Junayd’s men had rarely
reported seeing them in the desert sands during the heat of the day. The scouts
had always returned to the compound before sundown, never spending a night
outside the protection of the walls. As it grew darker and the air cooled, the
howling grew louder. Brad heard the stirring of the men on the ground and soon
he found Sean sitting beside him on top of the vehicle.

Sean
had his night vision spotting scope in his hand and was scanning the horizon.
Brad watched him search, then stop to focus intently on some far off object.

“Now
what is this?” Sean whispered. Brad observed Sean’s face contort in
concentration as he scanned. “Well I hadn’t expected this,” he whispered again,
handing the scope off to Brad.

Brad
put the scope to his eye but saw nothing other than the greenish hue of the
desert sands. Sean lifted his hand, grabbed the scope, and guided Brad’s eye to
a spot about three hundred meters into the distance.  

“Oh,”
Brad said. Looking through the scope, he saw a group of fifty to a hundred
primals. They were back deep in a berm of sand. Most of them stood and walked
in a circle with their noses to the wind, howling that scream, that deep moan.
Brad watched as others would rise up out of the sand and get to their feet.
After a pack was formed, they broke up into groups of ten to twelve and
wandered off into the desert.

“What
are they doing?” Brad asked.

 “Looks
like hunting parties. They must sleep or hibernate during the day, only to
awaken and hunt for prey at night,” said Sean. “I’ve seen lions do the same
thing in Africa.”

“No
way, Sean. You think these things are like lions?” Brad asked.

“Keep
your voice down. I’m just saying, I saw those things dig out of the sand.
Something in them must tell them to stay out of the sun all day. Then they wake
up at night. I don’t know what to make of it, but in Africa I’ve seen lions do
the same thing. They lay low all day, then hunt in packs under the cover of
darkness,” Sean answered back. “Doesn’t matter Brad, this doesn’t change
anything. We’ll still seek shelter at night and only move during the day.” Sean
glanced at him. “You look spent Brad, why don’t you try and grab some sleep?
I’ll take the rest of your watch.”

Brad
lowered himself off the Defender and leaned against the back of it. His head
was filled with so many things he couldn’t think straight.
I need a drink,
he thought to himself. Frustrated, since he knew that wasn’t going to be
possible for a while, Brad made his way back to his pack and bedroll. He
couldn’t help but look at the doorway to the house from which the primals had
rushed out and attacked him. He sat his pack against the side of the house and
rested against it, pulling his blanket over himself. He laid his rifle across
his lap and put the now familiar Sigma pistol at his side. “Tonight won’t be a
night for sweet dreams,” he said to himself, and then drifted to sleep.

He
was abruptly awakened with a hand across his mouth and Brooks’ face close to
his. Brooks held a finger over his lips and slowly released the hand from his
face. Brad closed his eyes tightly and opened them slowly to try and wake up.
He looked around and saw that everyone was gathered in the sleeping area. Brad
looked to the top of the Defender and wondered why no one was on watch. It
didn’t take long to get an answer to his question. From outside the heavy
wooden door he heard a thump, then scratching against the wood. Brad sat like a
stone, watching the faces of Brooks and Sean who calmly held their rifles in
their laps, intently focused on the wall’s door. Hasan was sitting stoically
farther to the back with his AK in his hands.

They
spent the night watching the door and each other, sometimes having to shake a
boot if one of them nodded off and began to snore. The scratching continued
until the very early hours of the morning and quit just as the sun was
beginning to come up.

Brooks
stood and crept to the front of the Defender and slowly lifted his body onto
the hood, then stood to look over the wall. Standing for a long time, he
finally jumped down and gave the all clear.

“You
know, Sean, I’m really starting to second guess myself for coming on this
expedition; it didn’t say shit about lions in the brochure,” Brad quipped.

“Oh,
you know you were bored chilling in that compound. You’re very welcome for the
rescue and you can put the charge for excitement on my tab,” Sean snapped back
quickly. “Hey guys, what do you say we hit a drive-thru for breakfast today.
I’m kind of in a hurry to put some distance on this place. I wasn’t getting the
whole welcome guest vibe last night.” Sean threw his bag on the top of the
vehicle.

The
team nodded in agreement before Hasan asked, “what is a drive through?” causing
laughs all around.

With
the bags stowed safely on the roof rack, they boarded the Defender. Brad opened
the heavy door and Brooks eased the vehicle out through the doorway and stopped
in front of the walls. Brad closed the door and stared at the bolt. In the end
he decided to leave the door unlocked and just dropped the latch to keep it
from swinging open. Who knew when someone else might seek the safety of these
walls and Hasan’s gift of the Enfield rifle? Brad walked back to the rear seat
and piled into the Defender. As they rolled out, they all looked at the dune in
the distance and wondered if there were a hundred sleeping primals under the
sand.

6.

The
Defender continued its journey down the Hairatan road. The farther they got
from the city, the less vehicles they saw on the sides of the abandoned
highway. The road opened up and Brooks was more comfortable driving faster.
They rode in silence; occasionally one of them would point out in the distance
a primal standing in the shadows of a rock, or a suspicious figure near a
mud-walled dwelling. On a mission to make it to Bremmel before dusk, they did
not stop to investigate.

It
was nearly noon when they came on the abandoned MRAP in the center of the road.
Brad told the team how Sergeant Turner had been forced to abandon it once it
ran out of fuel. Brooks pulled close to it and stopped. Sean wanted to give it
a quick once over to make sure there was nothing of value left inside.

They
stepped out of the Defender. Sean and Brad moved towards the MRAP while Brooks
and Hasan headed to the shoulder to relieve their bladders. “Like I said, Sean,
they took everything from it, there’s nothing left,” Brad said as they walked
around the stripped-down vehicle. When they got to the back, Sean reached up
and opened the large door to the crew compartment and looked inside.

“Hmm,
was it like this when you left it Brad?” Sean queried.

Sean
stepped aside and allowed Brad to stand on the step and look into the vehicle.
The inside was covered with blankets. Some of the seats had been removed; there
were cans of food on the shelves and a water bladder made from some kind of
animal skin hanging from the ceiling. It was obvious the space had been
recently occupied.

“What
the hell? Someone is living in here,” Brad said.

“Yeah,
but who?” asked Sean as he carefully scanned the surrounding desert. “And where
are they now?”

They
searched the area all around the MRAP for tracks but found no other signs of
the occupants. There were plenty of cans of food in the MRAP and the water
bottle was more than half full. There were no signs of weapons, or any clue as
to how many were hiding here.

“What
do you think, Sean?” Brad asked.

“I
don’t know, but we can’t hang out. Let’s leave this as we found it,” Sean said.

“What
about the people? We can’t leave them,” Brad said.

“Maybe
they heard us coming and are watching from the desert. Worse case they got
eaten by lions last night, either way it’s not our mission,” said Sean.

“Damn,
always the optimist, aren’t ya?” Brooks chimed in.

“Let’s
leave them a note directing them to the compound; these people deserve a
chance,” offered Hasan.

“It’s
a risk. We don’t know who they are, but I guess if they are too weak to fight
our team of four, they wouldn’t do much against the compound,” Sean said.

 Hasan
wrote a note in multiple languages and drew a map. The map showed the location
of the walled villa on the road, and then directed them into Hairatan. He was
careful not to lead them to the compound but instead to a place in the city
where he knew Junayd’s fighters would find them on their daily patrols. Hasan
placed the note on the center of the makeshift bed inside the MRAP and closed
the door. “I guess this is the most we can offer,” Hasan said.

They
boarded the Defender, feeling as if too much time had already been spent here.
Pulling back onto the road, Brooks sped up and they lost sight of the MRAP
behind them. Brad wondered who they had been, and felt pangs of guilt for not
doing more for the mysterious people.

They
would make good time now; the road was clear and even the potholes were farther
apart. Brad sat his back in his seat and watched the scenery quickly go by.
Soon they made it to the dead end ‘T’ intersection where the Hairatan road
disappeared into the desert. A sign told them they were entering Route A76 and
offered them the choices of west towards Mazar-e-Sharif and Bremmel, or east.
Brooks slowed the vehicle, looking both ways out of habit, and turned the Land
Rover west towards the Forward Operating Base.

Brad
started thinking about the last time he’d been at the base, and hoped it had
all been a bad dream, or something he’d imagined. Maybe they would pull up to
the gates and find that Task Force Raider had survived. He would see his
friends working the walls, happy to see him. He was dreaming of a warm
reception; maybe he’d be able to sleep in his own bed tonight.