Qadat: Part 2

This is the second part of a horror story. Part 1 can be found in the link below.

3

Jerry followed the small footprints into Helmand’s black belly. Using the flashlight on his rifle’s PEQ-16, he walked beside the trail of prints. The light illuminating the indentations in the ancient dust.

The cold air stank of rot. He believed following these footprints meant taking him to the exit. Some kid must be playing down here, which means there’s an easy way in and out. Jerry remembered the image of the person he saw. Pale and naked. He convinced himself that his mind played tricks on him.

Jerry accepted that he was officially MIA. The problem was that once he escaped, how could he be rescued? Staying put was the key to survival. Jerry recalled the brief his unit received when they trained at Twentynine Palms for Mojave Viper. In the 80s, a Marine had gotten himself lost in the vast expanse of the training area and was discovered months later, dead.

Pausing to sip what little water he had left in his CamelBak, Jerry took in the silence. This is what it must sound like to be dead. His stomach growled in hunger.

Jerry continued on.

The set of footprints took him to a wall. They didn’t trail to the left or right, they just stopped.

The wall was smooth, like a concrete basketball court. He pressed his hands to the stone and felt ice-cold penetrate through his gloves. Jerry looked up with his rifle, the flashlight a cone of light into infinity.

How big is this place?

No grooves indicated an entryway or secret door. The trail ended at this wall.

Jerry turned around to see if the footprints trailed off anywhere else.

Flat dust expanded into the black void.

His heart dropped.

Where did the footprints go? Where did his prints go?

Jerry flipped his NVGs down and turned them on. The ground naked and smooth like the wall. As if no one had ever walked here. The feeling of being lost in unknown darkness gripped Jerry’s throat. The true weight of darkness pressed into his mind.

How does that make sense?

His heart pounded in his ear like a drum. Breaking the silent night of the underworld.

Jerry looked back at the wall. If this were a cave or room, the wall would bring him to an exit or one end of this place. Jerry decided to follow the wall left.

Jerry walked along the wall that radiated ice-cold. He noticed an opening. Peering inside with his flashlight, a dark hallway shot into more darkness. Like a throat exhaling rot into the black void. Jerry gagged and looked back, his footprints still hugging the wall. Expecting them to vanish into the dust.

He stepped inside.

It was like walking into a refrigerator. The sweat chilled his neck. His sweat-soaked cammies quickly became cold. His breath puffed small clouds in the damp air.

Jerry walked with his rifle aimed down the hallway. Flashlight on, illuminating his path. The floor smooth. Here, there was no dust on the floor. His combat boots echoed with every step.

The air became humid. The stench unbearable. An image of the dead Taliban Jerry had found earlier in the deployment flashed in his mind’s eye. They were conducting a battle damage assessment after a firefight. They found a Taliban who had been shot and had died. Jerry was surprised at how quickly the human body begins to stink after it dies.

The memory a ghost. The body stiff with rigor mortis. Arms rigid and crooked. Mouth agape.

The hallway terminated in three rooms. Each with an empty doorway like eyeless sockets in a skull. One room directly in front, which Jerry saw was empty, and one to his left and right. Jerry did a “hasty clear” with his rifle and didn’t notice anything of interest. The rooms all empty.

Someone was running.

Feet clapping the smooth floor.

Jerry spun around, his flashlight illuminating nothing. With shaky hands pumping adrenaline, he turned his NVGs on.

A figure was running towards him down the hallway.

Pale.

Jerry squeezed the trigger of his M4. Fuck the ROE’s.

Two to the chest, and one to the head.

His ears rang as the three blasts from his rifle shattered the dark silence. The hallway reverberating the gunshots. Gunpowder accenting the scent of rot.

His target dropped.

Aiming his rifle at the body, Jerry approached the folded form.

His heart fell into his stomach.

Crumpled on the floor was a child. Eyes stared into its own endless void. His face distorted by the gunshot wound that entered his skull and blasted an exit wound in the back of his head, spraying brain matter all over the smooth wall.

Oh my God.

Jerry’s knees buckled. He felt sick.

“Fuck!”

His ears roared. He stared at the dead boy. Tunnel vision taking over.

The air became colder.

Jerry wanted to throw up.

Very cold now.

Jerry fell to his knees. His vision blacked out. He fell asleep.

4

Cold. Dark.

Jerry woke up coughing.

Mucus spat out from his lungs, which burned with the desire for air.

He gulped in deep breaths of air. Gagging at the taste of mold in his mouth.

Shivering, Jerry struggled to open his eyes, which were dried shut, like when he had pink eye as a kid.

Snapping his eyes open. Nothing. Only darkness.

His gear was gone. He had no rifle.

He wore only cammies. Soaking wet with the same mucus substance that he had coughed up.

They got me.

Jerry had never taken SERE training, a course for survival if captured. But he recalled from various military classes what to do if he was captured.

Sitting up, Jerry tried to figure out where he was. He was sitting on a flat floor, mucous covered the ground in a thin film. Jerry also noticed something else.

It wasn’t silent anymore.

Like the white noise of rain pattering against a glass window, Jerry heard what sounded like flesh beating the floor. As if there were people walking back and forth. Hundreds of people.

Jerry coughed some more.

It smells so bad.

As if there was a switch, the noise stopped.

Silence.

Wet smacking rhythmically slapped the floor outside of whatever room he was in.

Stone grinded against rock, making Jerry jump, as a doorway opened.

The air humid. Rank with stink.

Something walked towards Jerry, its feet slapping the floor, splashing the mucus into Jerry’s face. Jerry, trembling with fear and still seated, backed as far as he could. His body glided on the slime. He hit a wet wall.

Its feet slapped closer until it was in front of Jerry in the pitch void. It’s ragged breathing scraping the air.

Hot breath shot into Jerry’s face.

The stink of putrid rot.

Its mouth found Jerry’s arm in the dark. With a wet snap, it began to eat Jerry alive.

Jerry’s screams drowned as the endless crowd resumed its march.