My eyes lock with her’s. “I, Uh.” I lower my hand, resting it by my side. She cautiously walks towards me. She gets about halfway before a crunch can be heard below her. She looks down and picks up a piece of paper below her. I quickly realize that it's the drawing I had found downstairs. Her face turns to one of complete horror. Her eyes keep staring at the piece of paper up and down. I fight myself to speak. “What is that thing?” I ask desperately to know the answer. My voice breaks her out of some kind of trance. She is shocked as she stares at me. She shakes her head no and rushes away, tears appearing to form in her eyes.. As she is leaving, I say, “Wait, please!” I stagger to my feet as she keeps walking, now at a fast pace. I blurt out “Please! I know I saw it earlier! I need to know what it is!”. She stopped, turning her head to look me in the eyes. The glare she is giving me is sending a chill to my core.
“You saw it?” Her voice pierced the night. I am in shock that she is speaking. In an Instant she moved in front of me. “Are you sure you saw it?” She put her hands on my shoulders, staring directly into my eyes for an answer. “I-I saw the red eyes staring at me. From a building across a street.” I said, stuttering through the sentence. “You saw it here? We have to get inside, now!” Her tone is urgent and fearful. “What the hell is going on?” I think to myself. Her head moving all around as she scans the area. “No, I didn’t see it here. It was a while back.” Her eyes fixating upon something behind me. She is frozen in fear. Something is behind me, I can feel it. I begin hearing a scrapping noise behind me. Fear is gripping me, I couldn’t move. Pushing back against the fear, I grip my rifle and twist my body with vigor, looking down my sight. There’s nothing, I scan left and right, but nothing is there. I stand up and move towards the ledge, my rifle raised, ready to fire upon anything that’s dare show itself. As I get closer to the ledge, every step feels like my feet are covered in concrete. “What the fuck did she see? Was it that thing? Or something worse.” I think to myself as I suddenly realize I’m already at the ledge. I take a deep breath, close my eyes and open them. “I’m ready.” I think to myself as my mind clears. I whip my rifle over the ledge and look all the way down. There was nothing, beyond the BZ’s in the street. I take a sigh of relief as I put my hands down on the waist high ledge. *Clink* I feel something metallic under my hands. I look down to find two pairs of bloodied dog tags. “What the fuck?” I say as I stare down at them. I raise my hand and grab one. “How the hell did these get up here?” I say under my breath. I wipe away the blood on the first pair to find that they say “Patterson, Ryan T.” I quickly drop them and grab the other pair. “Miller, Greg R.” My heart begins to race. I drop them and begin to back away slowly. I swiftly move my head left and right watching all around for anything. Suddenly I hear galloping, almost like a horse on top of the buildings around me. I grab my NVGs and turn them on. I scramble to find what is around us. But I see nothing. Adrenaline begins rushing through me as I turn and rush to grab her hand. I lift her up and rush towards the fire escape. We rush through the building until we get to the final staircase downstairs. The sound of the guys talking slowly gets louder. “Jackson!” I shout as I am about to reach the bottom of the stairwell. I hit the bannister of the staircase and look up to find everyone staring at me. Doc, Gomez and Corbin are on the couch next to Smith. Jackson, Jasper, Hale, and Trenton are talking off to the right. Wilson is in the corner of the room. While the rest are spread out amongst the room. “We need to leave right now.” I say out of breath.
“Lieutenant, are you alright?” Doc says as he slowly gets up.
“Jackson, we need to leave, right now. We don’t have time anymore. Hale, Feathers, get on the move, plant the explosives, then you get right back to us. Do not stay away from the group longer than you have too. Doc, prepare a stretcher, we will carry Smith.” I say frantically.
“Wait, hold up! Whose idea was it to let Hale handle explosives? He failed sapper school!” Trenton outbursts.
“I didn’t fail!” Hale retorts.
“Oh, right! You got kicked out because you blew up the DeFak!” Trenton responds.
“Woah, Lieutenant, what did you see out there?” Jasper asks.
“Will you shut the fuck up and move! We don’t have time for this anymore! We need to fucking leave now!” My strong facade drops as fear emits from my voice.
Jasper and Jackson look at each other. “Alright that’s it!” Jasper exclaims as he grabs my plate carrier and rips me through the room towards the kitchen. “All of you sit tight, Hale, if you even think about leaving this room I’ll tie you to the exhaust of an abrams!” Jackson orders. We hit the door and he releases me as I flail through the room, catching myself on the countertop. Jackson and Jasper rush in with the girl quickly following behind. Jackson closes the door and turns to me.
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“What in the fuck was that Thane! What did we talk about?” Jackson said, rage filling his voice. I look at Jackson, when I do, his demeanor almost immediately changes. “Jesus Christ lieutenant, you’re lucky I didn’t crack your jaw back-“ Jasper is stopped by Jackson’s hand on his chest. “Hang on a sec Jasp. Something’s up, look at him.” Jasper scoffs, “I’m sorry did you not just watch him push Wilson into a wall?” “That was different Jasper! Look at him.” He turns back to me, “Lieutenant, what did you see?”. I compose myself. “I am not crazy. I. am. not! Crazy!” I look at Jackson and Jasper, “I, I, I don’t know! I went upstairs, and -.” I stop, realizing exactly what I saw with Kelly. “Lieutenant! You got one chance, man.” Jackson commands.
I sat down and put my hand on my forehead. “There is something else out there. I don’t know what it is, but Patterson and Miller’s dog tags are upstairs, on the roof.”
“What?” Jackson stops in disbelief.
“Big deal! of course there are gonna be dog tags upstairs! And on top of that, welcome to the city of the dead lieutenant, there are a lot of fucky things going on in here with us!” Jasper looks at me in disbelief.
“Jasper, he just said Miller and Patterson.” Jackson reiterates with emphasis. Suddenly Jasper’s eyes widen to the size of plates.
“Bullshit, that’s not possible.” Jasper scoffs.
“I swear to God!” I raise my hand up. “They were sitting up there, covered in blood. They were just laying there, like I was supposed to find them!”
“How would they even get up there?- better yet, show us. Right now.” Jackson says, stepping off to the side. I shake my head and lead them up to the roof, the young woman following close behind. We finally reach the roof. I rush over to the ledge, but they’re gone. I frantically look everywhere attempting to find the dog tags. “Where are the dog tags Lieutenant?” Jasper asks, visibly concerned by my mental state.
“They- they were right here! I swear-“ I say as I am cut off.
“Bullshit, Lieutenant, I love you to death man, but this is it! You obviously aren’t alright, Man, I held out hope it wasn’t true, but it looks like everybody was right! You’re shell shocked!”. Jasper outbursts.
I stop suddenly, “Excuse me?”.
“Oh, come on, Lieutenant! Ever since we had gotten back, the week we were on base, the guys said you kept zoning out and shit! You always looked out of it. I heard about your little fiasco in the school. Tex and Williams said they found an eviscerated skull on the BZ you encountered. Or do you wanna talk about how you scared them half to death being covered in blood? Jesus Christ, now I know why Jackson wanted to keep an eye on you when we got back!”. Jasper says, then quickly shuts his mouth, looking to Jackson in a moment of fuck up.
I blink in disbelief, I am completely taken back by the comment. “Do they really think I am psycho?”. I think to myself. I slowly look to Jackson who hasn’t taken his eyes off of me.
“Jason, I only did it to make sure you were still solid. And like I told everyone else! You’re good! You still are good! Jasper doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Jackson scrambles to control the situation. He reaches out to me but I slam his hand away.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I say in disbelief. I take a step back, but I lose balance and fall to the ground. Now sitting on the roof, I just look at them. “I. Am not. Crazy.” I say as I just stare at them. My glare falls to the ground in front of me. Jasper pulls Jackson to the other side of the rooftop. Their murmuring can be heard. But I can’t care less what they are saying. “Am I crazy?” I think to myself. As I do I think of everything I have seen, Kelly, my dreams, “I keep seeing things that aren’t there. Was the girl even up here with me? I don’t understand anymore.” I slowly begin to tear up. As I do I feel a hand hit my shoulder. I turn my head to find the girl. I look at her, her blue eyes stare directly into mine as she points towards the ledge. “You aren’t crazy.” She manages to say. I shake myself out of it and follow her direction. As I do, I see four deep cuts Into the concrete. I suddenly realized what it is. They’re claw marks. I am in disbelief. I quickly stand up and begin walking towards the marking. “Lieutenant?” I hear Jackson say. I reach the ledge and stare at the cuts. I reach my hand out and trace the cuts with my fingers. Suddenly I realize the dried blood where the tags had been.
“Jackson, Jasper. Think what you want about me. I don’t care. I’m a bit messed up. I admit, but I’m not fucking crazy.” I point to the claw marks, as I do. Both of them look in fear.
“What the fuck are those?” Jackson questions.