Without even thinking about it, he turned the wheel and took the truck through the alley, turned the wheel again until he was headed out of town, mashed his foot against the accelerator and smashed his way through the gate. He was lucky that the soldiers had expected him to stop. They fired at him—the back window was shattered—but the truck seemed to be running fine and he hadn’t been hit. He was fine.
That had been an hour or two ago. He’d lost track of time. But if anything, now that he’d put some distance between himself and the village, he was more than fine. He was great. The back of his neck was bothering him where something had hit him in the parking lot, but he couldn’t see what it was in the mirror. He could feel a small bump with his fingers, maybe a cut, but it was more numb than sore. The real problem was his stomach. He could feel it roiling. He supposed it could be the flu, but more than likely it was just anxiety. Who the hell knew what he’d just escaped from, but he was pretty sure he was never going to see his sister again, never hold his nephew or his niece. He had to choke down a sob, and then he had to choke down another round of gagging.
He wasn’t fine.
But he was alive.
He dug the bottle of water out of his jacket pocket, fumbled with the cap, and took a swig. It felt good and seemed to settle his stomach for a minute, but then it happened again, another surge of nausea.
Maybe he would pull over, just for a couple of minutes. Give himself a chance to be sick by the side of the road. Then he’d feel better.
Suddenly, there was a brilliant light behind him. Like a camera flash. He glanced in the rearview mirror, but the light hurt his eyes. He looked forward again and realized he couldn’t see much more than the echo of the light. He slowed the truck down and then stopped it so he could rub his eyes. The light outside was already fading, and whatever it had been hadn’t damaged his vision. There were ghosts of the landscape imprinted on his eyes, but they were already swimming away. And there, again, the surge of nausea. This time he didn’t think he could keep it down, and he scrambled out of the truck.
As his feet hit the ground he turned to look back toward the village, toward where the flash of light had come from. But it wasn’t a flash of light anymore. It was a lick of fire lighting the heavens.
Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center,
Twentynine Palms, California
Lance Corporal Kim Bock checked her rifle. Again. She knew there wasn’t any point, but this was the first time she was leading her unit in a live-fire exercise, and checking her M16 calmed her down. She’d trained with the M16A2 in basic, but she’d been issued the M16A4 once she made it out to California. There wasn’t much of a difference between the two rifles as far as she was concerned, at least not when she was out on the range. She did like that she could remove the carrying handle when they were in the middle of exercises.