Authors: John R. Kess
Elly's Ghost
Elly’s Ghost
By John R. Kess
Copyright
© 2012 John R. Kess
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without
written permission from the author, except for brief passages for review
purposes.
This book is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents are either a product of
the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Corporal Jay
Tessier’s restraints squeezed him as the Black Hawk banked hard to the right.
He gripped his M16 as the helicopter leveled out.
“Thirty
seconds!” Sergeant Kranz shouted.
The click-click of
the eight Marines cocking their automatic weapons was heard over the beating of
the Black Hawk’s blades. They all shared the same focused and serious look on
their faces. Jay’s adrenaline kicked in as the helicopter descended. Jay had
trained with all of them the past year and a half and considered them all
brothers, and he knew they felt the same way.
Jay mentally ran
through his mission responsibilities again and then the doors opened. The helicopter
dropped down behind a rocky hill and hovered four feet above the deck just long
enough for Jay and the other Marines to jump out. It regained altitude, swung
its tail around, and disappeared into the darkness.
Jay panned his weapon
across the Afghan desert. Through his night-vision goggles he saw nothing but
dusty earth and stars.
“Clear,” Jay
heard platoon leader Sergeant Kranz report in his earpiece.
The cool air of
the night was welcome as the Marines silently jogged two miles to the target. The
crusty sand crunched beneath their boots. Jay could picture the dozen men back
at base watching their progress, beamed in from the silent circling drone
thousands of feet above them. He knew there was an attack helicopter a few
miles out on standby, ready to engage at the first sign of real trouble.
Kranz raised his
arm as they reached a large rocky hill that Jay recognized from the satellite
photos shown during the mission briefing. They crept silently over the hill,
and the main entrance to the suspected Taliban hideout came into view. Kranz
motioned for his teams to split as planned. Four Alpha team members, including Jay
and Kranz, went around to the left. The other four, from Bravo team, went
around to the right.
Kranz stopped
everyone behind a large boulder. Jay saw the entrance to the cave in a valley
between a gently sloping hill to the south and a steep hill to the north. A
small amount of light was coming from inside, but he couldn’t see anyone.
“Bravo team,
report status,” Kranz said in a low tone into his microphone.
“Side entrance
is clear,” the Bravo team leader replied.
“Roger that.
Hold your position.” Kranz motioned for Jay and Dobbs, another Alpha team
member, to advance toward a large boulder closer to the entrance.
Jay stayed low as
he and Dobbs quietly ran to the boulder and took cover. Kranz watched their
progress with his night-vision.
“We’ve got
movement,” Jay heard Kranz say through his earpiece. “We’ve got a dog at the
main entrance.”
Jay peeked
around the boulder as the dog stepped into full view. It was so emaciated that
he was surprised it was moving as well as it was. A long leash trailed beside the
dog as it sniffed the air, then barked and whimpered as it pulled on the leash.
A voice came from
inside the cave. The dog walked back to the entrance and sat down, then it
stood and barked again, this time louder and more determined.
A boy appeared
at the entrance with an AK-47 slung around his shoulder. Jay guessed the boy
was about fourteen years old. The dog whined at him and then barked again.
Jay swore under
his breath. He knew dogs had spoiled many surprise attacks. He glanced at Dobbs,
who seemed equally pissed off.
“Hold your
position and stay out of sight,” Kranz warned both teams through their
earpieces. “We’ve got an armed boy and a dog at the main entrance.”
The boy bent
down to pet the dog and then looked out into the night, surveying the area. He repositioned
his weapon and held it at his side with one hand while he grabbed the leash
with the other. The boy let the dog pull him toward Jay.
“Tessier and
Dobbs, they’re headed straight for you,” Kranz said.
Jay stayed behind
the boulder and signaled to the Marine next to him that he’d cover the left
side.
The boy was
halfway to the boulder when something caused him to stop and turn around. Jay
listened as Kranz described a man with an AK-47 at the cave’s entrance. The man
and the boy spoke for a moment, then Kranz reported the boy was moving again.
“The boy will be
on you in five seconds,” Kranz told them. “Tessier, he’s heading to your side.”
Jay felt a rush
of adrenaline as he aimed his weapon. The last thing he wanted was to shoot a
kid. He fought to keep his breathing steady. The dog growled and barked as it
came into view.
The boy froze.
His wide-open eyes stared back at Jay.
Jay shook his
head as he stared at the boy and thought the kid could have been any one of the
many boys who played soccer with the soldiers near the base. Jay noticed the
boy’s shallow breaths, the worn stock of his assault rifle, and his confused
brown eyes.
The boy glanced
at the cave and then back at Jay. He staggered backward a few steps as the dog
barked and pulled on the leash.
Jay watched as
the boy’s eyes narrowed and the lines around his mouth formed an angry frown. The
boy stood up straight and took a deep breath.
Jay’s adrenaline
kicked into high gear as the anger displayed on the boy’s face grew. He wanted the
kid to put his weapon down. Dobbs was pointing at the boy’s weapon and
motioning to the ground. Jay shook his head in an effort to say, “Don’t do it.”
The boy let go
of the leash, letting the dog charge Jay, who kept his eyes on the boy. The boy
suddenly yelled and swung his gun up toward Jay.
Jay pulled the
trigger, sending multiple rounds into the boy, whose body twisted and fell
backward. The boy landed on his back with his weapon thrown to the side. The
dog yelped at the sound of the gunfire and ran off into the darkness.
“Hamasa!” The
man shouted the boy’s name in a long, high-pitched scream from the cave
entrance. Bullets ricocheted off the boulder as the man fired his weapon.
“Open fire!”
Kranz commanded as he and the Marine next to him sprayed the entrance with their
M4 carbines. The armed man quickly retreated inside the cave, firing as he
went.
“Alpha team is
under fire,” Kranz shouted.
Jay’s weapon grew
heavy as the shock from what had happened set in. He stared at the boy while
gunfire continued from both directions.
“Tessier!” Kranz
yelled. “Grenade the entrance. The rest of you give him cover fire!”
Jay snapped out
of it and signaled to Dobbs, who nodded and then popped up over the boulder,
firing at the entrance. Jay closed his eyes for a quick moment and pictured his
target. He moved to the side of the boulder, pulled the pin out of his grenade,
and threw it at the cave entrance.
Jay dove behind
the boulder. The loud boom reverberated in his chest as the blast tore apart the
entrance. Small rocks and debris rained down on him and Dobbs as the pulsing
echo from the blast disappeared in the distance. The night turned silent.
The ringing in
Jay’s ears slowly morphed into something that didn’t belong. He knew exactly
what the sound was, but his mind refused to believe he could hear it. Slowly
Jay stood up from behind the boulder with his weapon ready. Chunks of earth and
rock formed a pile at the cave entrance. Dense smoke and the screams of a young
girl poured out of the small opening at the top of the pile. Jay slumped back
against the boulder as he thought about his niece and went numb.
SATURDAY
Elly woke to the
blur of the bright Memphis sun. She lifted her head but dropped it right back
on the hotel pillow. Her ears were ringing, her throat seemed to be lined with
cotton, and her eyelids felt like sandpaper. The sunshine pouring through the
windows added to the burning.
“Elly.” The
voice belonged to Alex, the band’s bassist. “Are you awake?”
She covered her
eyes and peeked through her fingers to see Alex, Jeremy, and Brent, the other
three members of System Override, standing at the foot of her bed.
Alex’s tall and
thin frame, along with his crazy hair, reminded Elly of a stalk of broccoli. Jeremy,
the band’s drummer, had the build of a linebacker and wore a tank top showing
off the tattoo of a cross on his shoulder. Brent, the lead guitarist, wore a
Baltimore Ravens hat over his buzzed haircut. His T-shirt read, “I’m not sure I
like your overtone.”
“Ahh, go away!”
Elly groaned as she pulled the sheet over her head.
“Come on, Elly,”
Jeremy said. “You’re going to miss your plane.”
Elly moaned. She
loved her bandmates, but right now she hated them all for waking her up.
“Your dad only
turns fifty once.” Alex jumped up on Elly’s queen-size bed and bounced on it like
a trampoline. “Now get up, get up, get up!”
“Go away!” Elly
rolled onto her stomach, pulling the sheet over her head to form a cocoon. It
did nothing to keep out the bright sun, so she buried her face in the pillow.
“We will, if you
get up.” Jeremy brought his head close to hers.
“Come on, guys,”
Brent said. “Leave her alone.”
“Yes, leave me
alone,” Elly muttered.
“But it’s so
much fun.” Alex rolled facedown on top of her. “I’m not getting off until you
say you’re getting up.”
“No!” Elly
groaned.
“In that case,”
Jeremy piled on top of Alex, “you’re getting both of us.”
“Oh, my God!”
Elly tried to move but was helpless under their combined weight. “You jerks!
Get off me!”
Brent lunged
from the corner of the bed and blindsided Jeremy with a flying tackle. The two
tumbled into the narrow space between the wall and the bed, dragging Alex with
them.
Elly sat up,
unable to resist laughing as the three young men, her best friends since ninth
grade, struggled to untangle themselves.
The thud brought
Elly’s bodyguard into the room.
“Good morning,
Kevin,” Elly said.
“Well, good
morning.” Kevin McKnight stared at the pile of musicians and shook his head. “I
see you have everything under control, as usual.”
Elly smiled and
then winced as she finally got up and headed for the bathroom. She pulled at
her T-shirt and unrolled part of her shorts, which were clinging to her thigh.
“How much time do I have?” Elly asked Kevin. Her throat burned with every word.
“We’re wheels up
in forty-five minutes, so we need to leave in fifteen. The weather looks good all
the way to Baltimore.”
In the bathroom
Elly held herself up with her hands flat on the cold vanity to look in the
mirror. She had been featured on the cover of
Teen Vogue
, CosmoGirl,
and Seventeen,
showing off her freckles and the way her pink nail polish matched
the pink striping in her brunette hair. To most of her fans, the
twenty-two-year-old looking back at her would have appeared to be the same lead
singer of their favorite band, but to Elly, her brown eyes seemed to be
retreating into their sockets and the bone structure in her face resembled
someone who’d given up eating. Elly’s stomach churned, and the pressure behind her
forehead from her usual morning headache hurt worse than normal. The whites of
her eyes were too red, and she was so exhausted she had to seriously fight the
urge to cry. She knew her voice was slowly getting worse with every concert.
The tour wouldn’t be over for another two months, and Elly wondered if she
would make it. She shook two pills from a brown plastic bottle and swallowed them.