Amanda puzzled over it all for far too long. She strained to hold on to consciousness, augmented by coffee and uppers and a portable radio with a country music station on too loudly, as she scribbled notes and theories about what it all meant.
Her drowsiness eventually overtook her, and she dropped onto the desk for a fitful sleep.
They were everywhere, and they wanted me.
Look right, nothing. Check eleven o’ clock, clear.
I shouldn’t be fighting them. They only wanted to help.
Hail of gunfire at my six! Two bogeys down.
“We know you yearn for freedom. Let us give it to you.”
The choppers loomed overhead. Their chin guns carved through bone and tissue.
“Don’t fight us, sister. Join us.”
I had the alpha dead center in my sight. She looked so sad…betrayed.
Her head exploded, along with everything else in a six foot diameter, from the incoming missile.
All I could do was vomit. It was the only way I could explain, ask forgiveness for, what I’d done.
She snapped awake, knocking the cup of coffee through the air. She fell with it, spreading onto the cheap motel carpeting in time with her drink.
Groggily, she rose, stumbling around the ceramic shards to reach the bathroom. She gazed at herself in the mirror, scowling at what she saw.
“Running away. That’s supposed to be what the Army taught you?”
She thought about the puzzle, and nodded in acknowledgement of where to find the missing pieces.
“Tomorrow, back to the trenches,” she whispered. “Back to Wolf Lake.”