Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S3 Ep142: Episode 143: Military Horror Stories

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Today’s first phenomenal tale of terror is ‘The Slumbering Battleship Awakens’, an original award-winning work by Taxi Dancer, kindly shared directly with me via my sub-reddit and narrated here for you all with the author’s express permission. https://www.reddit.com/user/Taxi_Dancer/ Tonight’s closing all-time epic story is ‘Cursed Sands’, an original work by Chili 1220, kindly shared directly with me for the express purpose of having me exclusively narrate it here for you all. https://www.reddit.com/user/Chili1220/

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We believe OCT scans are so important they're included with every standard eye exam. Book an eye exam at Spexsavers.cavers.ca.caps are provided by independent optometrists. Visit Spexsavers.cavers.com to learn more. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's Dungeon. Military horror stories. They tap into our primal fears by blending elements of the familiar and the extraordinary. They exploit our anxieties about authority control and the unknown, making them particularly effective at eliciting fear and unease.

As we'll see in tonight's two feature-length stories. Now as ever before we begin a word of caution. Tonight's tales may contain strong language as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery That sounds like your kind of thing And let's begin The slumbering battleship awakens December 31st, 2019

The Catch-31 Restaurant on the Virginia Beach border The popular and classy Catch-31 restaurant bar that sat on the corner of Atlantic and Pacific Avenue on the world-famous Virginia Beach strip boasted the most amazing seafood and Kobe beef that you could find on the entire Atlantic Avenue border. The New Year's Eve was cool, and the salty breeze coming from the Atlantic Ocean

was brisk and refreshing as crowds of locals and tourists celebrating the last holiday of the year packed the beachfront and bars. Outside, the large wooden deck attached to the restaurant had a wraparound tiki bar, surrounded by palm trees and strings of tiny lights. The outdoor lounge was adorned

with many large circular wooden tables, which contained a warm and inviting wood fire set in a pit right in the middle of each table which illuminated the chilly night with a sentry warm glow. The sound of the Atlantic Ocean, rushing leisurely on and off the beach, seemed to play a sleepy melody,

which was accompanied by the voices of the partiers and revelers eagerly waiting for the new year. On open air stages set along small parks which line the boardwalk every half block, local bands play jazz, blues and soft rock music to entertain the visitors as they awaited the start of the fireworks display which would light up the beach in bursts of bright and lively colors. Virginia Beach was a relatively conservative city, this being a largely military town, mostly navy, and despite the large crowds, no one was getting too loud or boisterous, even as New Year's was only two hours away. At the catch-31, a petite but very attractive young college co-ed from Lincoln, Nebraska, her light brown hair flowing,

down her back in a ponytail, stood at the outside bar. She wore a white blouse and a tight-fitting red jacket which accentuated her pert and ample breasts. The young lady swirled a tall glass of Long Island iced tea in her hand as she listened intently to a pair of tall, skinny young men wearing baseball caps, standing on either side of her. A second fresh Long Island ice tea sat on the bar in front of her, bought for her by one of the young men who was wearing the navy blue and orange sweater of the University of Virginia. The other young man, wearing a loose, white and gray button-down shirt, had ordered three shots of tequila for them. So there I was, the guy wearing the white and gray shirts hat. I turned the corner of the concrete wall and saw a set of wooden

stairs leading to a second-story landing. I held my auto-rifle-a-fousel bazooka in the range of tactical operation up-and-ready firing position, the way I was taught when I went to the elite United States Navy SEAL training school. When suddenly, I saw him. There he was. It was his arm of bin Laden. He appeared out of a side room and was running across the landing

to a door on the other side to escape. What's the Norton rifle bazooka? Said the girl. Her speech slightly slurred from the ice libations that the young men were pouring into her. I've never heard of that. The guy wearing the button-down shirt stared uncomfortably,

girl, seemingly searching for words. That's a special gun thing that only we elite United States Navy SEALs are allowed to use, said the other guy wearing the UVA sweater. The two young men nodded at each other in agreement. Yeah, yeah, so the reason you've never heard of it is only because elite United States Navy seals like us use it. Not even the Marines or the Army have it. Anyway, as my partner was going after Bin Laden, he suddenly had his auto-rivaled bazooka shot out of his hand by Bin Laden.

So, Azama had one of those K-Z-47 automatic assault machine-gun rifle things, and he sprayed it at my body here. Oh, um, you mean an AK-47? said the girl, woozily giggling. Uh, yeah, yeah, right, said the guy wearing the button-down shirt, looking annoyed at his friend. his um AK-47 gun not only had he destroyed my gun but he also shot me in the shoulder that's how I got the purple

heart for outstanding bravery the college girl from Nebraska gasped hand covering her mouth and then rubbed his shoulder Osama bin Laden shot you that's awful well you hurt bad the guy in the button down shirt looked triumphantly at his friend

I was fine We elite United States Navy SEALs are specially trained to ignore pain and continue fighting until we complete the mission. Besides, I still have my really long sharp knife. Oh, you're a bayonet, said the college girl. Yeah, yeah, my bayonet, stammered buttoned down shirt guy. I pulled it out of my tactical Ranger assault special operations bootstrap holster, and ran up the stairs after the asylum being loud. Who, uh, immediately kicked my buddy here in the...

chest and made him fall backwards down the stairs interrupted uva sweater guy slapping button-down shirt guy on the back button down shirt guy gave his buddy an evil look for interrupting his story ignoring his smaller friend uva sweater guy quickly passed around the shots of tequila smiling sweetly as he passed the shot glass to the girl while tauntingly sneering at his buddy yeah so while he was falling back down the the stairs. I came around the other corner and sprayed Osama bin Laden on full automatic with my, uh, yeah, my AK-47. Oh yeah, I had the sniper version because I'm an elite United States Navy SEAL sniper. You two guys are the ones who killed Osama bin Laden? exclaimed the girl loudly and excitedly. Her eyes wide and hands clasped, said UVA sweater guy, holding up his hands and

looking nervously around. Not so loud, honey. We elite United States. United States Navy SEALs are ordered to keep a low profile. We don't want people knowing who we are because there are many terrorists lurking around who still want to take revenge on us for eliminating Osama. Yeah, you know, President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor for taking out Bin Laden, said button-down, swear a guy. But they couldn't show it on TV or anything. The girl nodded solemnly.

Wow, she said. I never thought I'd actually meet two real war heroes when I came here to visit. Virginia. Well, said button-down shut guy. We don't like to brag. Even around other elite United States Navy SEALs, we don't like to brag because they're definitely jealous of us. My partner and I are like much better than just regular elite United States Navy SEALs. Super SEALs, said UVA sweater guy, putting his arm around the girl's waist and pulling her into him. You know, he said with a sly smile. If you want to talk, more elite United States Navy SEAL stuff. We have a room upstairs. We'd be happy to show you

our elite United States Navy SEAL big guns, if you know what I mean. The girl looked up at both of the skinny young men. Gritting knowingly, she slowly licked her lips. I looked over at my girlfriend who only shook her head and rolled her eyes. We've been standing right next to them at the bar, enjoying a glass of champagne while waiting for our table to be prepared. We walked over a few steps towards the young co-ed. My girlfriend pushing in between her and the UVA sweater guy when I bumped in between the girl and buttoned down shirt guy. In unison, my girlfriend and I slammed our US military identification cards called cag cards on the bar as I yelled. Cag card check, gentlemen. The two startled young men jumped, looking at me and my girlfriend with a mixture of surprise,

annoyance and uncertainty. I grinned and glanced over at my girlfriend. She was smirking evilly at the two genuine all-American elite United States Navy SEAL war heroes. Well, gentlemen, she said in a voice dripping with deadly honey. UVA sweater guy puffed up to his full six-foot two-inch tall, 130-pound self, and said in his best tough guy voice, what are you talking about, sailor? I picked my cat card up off the bar and put it in front of his face. You meant to say soldier, didn't you?

elite United States Navy SEAL, as in Sergeant First Class, as in gunnery sergeants. You should know that, what with you being an elite United States Navy SEAL and all. The college girl from Nebraska looked at her two Navy SEAL heroes, confusion etched on her face. My girlfriend picked up her cat-card. I'm the sailor gentleman, petty office of third class, surface warfare sonar technician. Now, where are your cat guards? A sweetly wicked smile never left her face. Oh, by now there was a noticeable hush on the deck

as several of the patrons are quiet down to witness the spectacle unfolding at the bar. I glanced over at a nearby table underneath a palm tree, illuminated by the warm glow of the table's fire pit, where four shorts, casually dressed muscular dudes with massive tree trunks for thighs, were quietly sipping corona lights and intently staring at us. I slipped them a quick wink, knowing that it was time to swiftly end this charade. Oh, come on, gentlemen, I said. You know that if we challenge you to show your cat cards and you have them,

we have to buy you your drinks for the rest of the night. But if we challenge you to show your cat cards and you don't have them, my girlfriend said, smiling as she took a sip of champagne. Go ahead and show them, said the college girl. Free drinks for the rest of the night. Hell yet. Hell yeah. My girlfriend and I said at the same time.

But we... But we don't... said UVA sweater guy. We're elite United States Navy SEALs, said Button-down Shirt Guy. We don't need Cork cards. CAC, I said. We don't need CAC cards, repeated button-down shirt-guy, annoyed. Elite United States Navy SEALs like us are two special forces to have CAC cards.

Kakasa for a... Yeah, for people who aren't as special forces as us to lead United States Navy SEALs, chimed in UVA Sweater guy. Then, knowing that the gig was up, UVA sweater guy turned and said, Come on, Steve, putting a shaky arm around button-down shirt guy, and dragging him away. Yeah, these people obviously don't know anything about what it's like being

an elite United States Navy SEAL. Yeah, said Button-down Shirty. shirt guy as he allowed UVS for the guy to lead him away down the wooden steps of the deck and towards the beach. Yeah, they don't know what it's like. He looked over his shoulder and stuck out his middle finger at us. I see you around, you ugly Nebraska cornfet slut. Taking a sit from my champagne glass, I raised a toast to the two rapidly retreating fakers and said, Happy New Year's.

I looked towards the table where the short muscular dudes were sitting in, as I expected, found it empty. The four quiet muscular dudes were probably following UVA sweater guy and buttoned down shirt guy down to the beach so that they could discuss elite United States Navy SEAL stuff with them. And the patrons of Catch 31 turn their attention away from us and quickly return to their holiday celebrations and festivities. A lot of real military warriors live in Virginia Beach, and it was pretty commonplace to see stolen valor heroes get their asses handed to them by the actual heroes so they were trying to portray. I turned and look at the little coed from Nebraska.

Her eyes were wide and her mouth hung open. My girlfriend caught the Coed's glass of Long Island iced tea before she accidentally dropped it on the wooden deck. My girlfriend took a quick sip of the poet drink before placing the tall glass on the bar. Whoa, that's good stuff, she said, nodding approvingly. I gently put my hand on the college girl's shoulder and smiled. Don't listen to those jerks, I said.

Look, there are only about 2,000 seals serving in the Navy. Virginia Beach is a great place to visit and a pretty safe place to party, but be careful. You just need to watch out for her. My girlfriend leaned on my shoulder, a huge smile on a face. You just need to watch out for the 8,000 fake-ass elite United States Navy SEAL wannabies, prowling around the boardwalk looking for innocent college girls from Nebraska to take advantage of. My girlfriend waved at the girl as she was talking and held out her hand. My name's Ellie. What's yours?

I'm Andrea, she said, shaking my girlfriend's hand. I'm Fox, I said, shaking Andrea's hand. First time visiting Virginia Beach. This is my first time ever leaving Nebraska, Andrea answers. Well, Andrea, said Ellie. Still smiling as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders. if you really want to find a Navy seal and look for a really quiet guy with broad shoulders and legs the size of oak trees

who claims he's just a lowly Navy cook who's never been in combat but yet drives around in a big, badass truck with tires the size of a mammoth that's a Navy seal silent, strong, deadly and Uber-Uber sexy Hey! I said, pretending to be offended as Ellie chuckled and kissed my cheek Andrea laughed. Well, I'm just here visiting my sister for the holiday. She married a sailor, and they were stationed here.

She said that I need to get out in Nebraska and explore and not be so introverted. I'm not looking for a Navy seal in particular, but maybe you just want to meet a good man. The ratio of women to men out in Lincoln is about five to three. Well, Andrea, I said, this is the place. The ratio of men's women here in Tidewater area is about ten to one. "'Yeah,' said Ellie. "'Lucky you, Fox, of all the guys I could have picked.' "'Ah, the absolute very best of them all picked you,' I interrupted,

and we all had a good laugh. The matre D of Catch 31 approached us and said, "'Mr. Fox, your table is ready and waiting for you.' "'You look to Andrea. "'Will the young lady be joining your party tonight?' "'Andrea blushed. "'No, I'm fine. I'll be fine.' "'Are you sure?'

asked Ellie. Both Ellie and Andrea looked to be about the same age, around 22, although Ellie was a good head taller than Andrea. Ellie was always attracted to older military men who outranked her, and I was always attracted to crazy young blonde German girls who were taller than me. I was 15 years older than Ellie, and outranked her by four stripes, while Ellie was blonde, taller than me by two inches, five he counted her in heels, and was of German descent, so we immediately hid it off when I first met her at the stage. Starbucks in the mall. Ellie and I always had a blast when our deployment schedules allowed us to be together, and the fact that I was Army and she was Navy meant there were no conflicts of interest

between our different service branches and chains of command. I also understood that Ellie would want someone closer to her age to talk with, so I didn't mind when she invited Andrea to sit with us. Still, Andrea insisted that she would be fine, and that she would take our advice about meeting guys here in Virginia Beach. Remember, said Ellie, as we wave good news. by. There are ten guys to every one girl here at the beach. Try not to break too many hearts. I'll try, laughed Andrea. However, Ellie and I had no sooner turned around to walk to our table

when I heard some guy walk up to Andrea and say, So, baby, you ever hear of the elite United States Navy Seals? I'm the most elite of them all, because you'll never guess who I killed. I was about to turn around when Ellie tightened a grip on my arm and said, "'Haddy is killer.' The matriety led us inside the restaurant and through a large, crowded, brightly lit circular-shaped room which contained another circular bar in the middle of the restaurant. The bar was surrounded by cozy tables

and couples enjoying causes of fresh seafood and other delicious menu items. The buzz of conversation intermingle with the clinking toast of glasses and the smells of sumptuous foods which made my stomach rumble and my mouth water. Next to the large bay windows, a pianist was playing a slow, jazzy tune on an ebony grand piano, as we followed the matriety through another set of double doors,

and down a short corridor into another section of the restaurant which consisted of a long room where the lighting was dimmed to create a more romantic, ambient setting. Our table was set with two tall glowing candles, a basket with a selection of warm fresh breads and rocks, two glasses of ice water, and a bottle of champagne waiting for us. Our table was beside a white, tinted bay window, which gave us a slightly elevated and unrestricted view of the bustling boardwalk and beachfront. It was much quieter here in this section of the restaurant, than the tables along the room were spaced further apart to give each couple a greater modicum of privacy to enjoy each other's company in relative peace and quiet. As we waited for our food to arrive, we talked about the things which were going on in our lives.

Ellie talking about US Navy stuff, half of which went completely over my head, and I was talking about army stuff, half of which I'm sure went completely over her head. I talked about fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Ellie talked about her US Navy terrorist busting cruises to places such as the Bahamas, Rota in Spain, Morocco and Nice in France, while she was serving aboard the Ali Burk-class destroyer named after a US Marine colonel who'd earned the Medal of Honor. "'Good Lord, honey,' I laughed. "'You Navy guys bust terrorists where most of us normal people go to vacation.' She grabbed up some ice out of the champagne bucket and playfully tossed it at me. "'Oh, yeah? Well, where were you when those two punk-ass college jerks were out there killing Osama bin Laden? Mr. I'm a big badass army cavalry scout. I grinned and raised an eyebrow, whispering,

"'I was making your toes curl, remember?' Ellie smiled and bit on her index finger. Oh yeah, she said, licking the corner of her lips. Anyway, she said, changing the topic. What if the zombie apocalypse has already happened? Huh? I said. No, no, hear me out, continued Ellie. What if the zombie apocalypse has already happened?

And we're all just shambling, rotting corpses, but we don't realize it. What if in what's left of our dead and decaying brains? You think we're still living our lives, going to work, celebrating New Year and eating dinner. But in reality, we're all chomping down in the live and screaming body of some living person who we'd hoard from the ground. I look down at my dinner plates. Honey, this medium-rare Kobe beef costs $135. I'd like to enjoy it without thinking in reality it's some person's entrails or something. Ellie scooped a forkful of a slow-cooked prime rib into her mouth.

"'That really is tender. You should try this.' "'No thanks,' I said. "'It might be someone I know.' "'Oh, come on, honey,' Ellie exclaimed. "'That would make a great story.' "'Elly,' I said, "'I'm not submitting any of my stories to your creepy doctor friend. "'Besides, my stories are based off of actual paranormal events that had happened.

"'I wouldn't even know where to begin a fictional story from scratch.' "'Oh, N, creepen,' said Ellie. emphasizing the N in creeping. Ah, whatever, I said. What's wrong with me just reading you my stories? Why do you need your creepy doctor to read my stories to you? Crepen, Ellie said again, grabbing more ice out of the bucket. Besides, his voice is silky and sexy.

You always sound like you're yelling at boot camp recruits. I cross my arms, pretending to be offended. Your mom's voice is silky and sexy. said, just before I was hit by a handful of champagne bucket ice. She's also only two years older than you, you cradle-robbing joke, Ellie said playfully, a chunk of prime rib clutched in her teeth. At that moment, the dark purple skies above the beach exploded with bright, flashing sparkles of red, yellow, and orange fireworks.

He sat silently, ooh, and high, as an endless boom of vibrant, colorful lights burst forth and danced in the air before they slowly did. descended towards the ground. Outside we could hear the muffled sounds of crowds cheering and celebrating at each colourful explosion of fireworks. But in the back of my mind, I imagine that in an alternate reality, the sounds could easily be the horrified screams of panicking people being drowned out by the hungry moz of hordes of the undead. I hated to admit it, but any suggestion about undead zombies not realizing their undead zombies would make a pretty cool scary story, or scary spaghetti story or whatever the heck type of story Ellie called them.

I looked over at my girlfriend, the bright burst of the New Year light show being reflected in her US Navy issue of eyeglasses. Clinking her champagne glass with me, I said, Happy New Year, Ellie. Happy New Year, Fox, she answered, with the most genuine and loving smile I'd ever seen. But behind the sultry look which she gave me,

I could also tell that she wasn't done with trying to get me to send my stories to her creepy doctor friend, whose smooth and relaxing voice she would often listen to on YouTube during the long hour she spent alone at night when the Navy had her on wash duty. Later that evening, in the room on the fifth floor, we'd gotten at the hotel attached to the Catch-31 restaurants. Ellie and I created our own fireworks to celebrate the new year, as our passion made us one, her dainty little toes curling often as my back was set ablaze with her scratches. The large sliding bay window, leading out to the balcony was open, and the sound of the sea crashing ashore seemed to match

the rhythm of our bodies coming together. Later, as a cool and gentle breeze washed over us, we lay in the glow of our passion and exhaustion. Ellie was lying on her side facing me, drawing circles with a finger on the sheen of sweat on my chest. She kissed the side of my cheek. Do you know what I want to do now? She whispered huskily into my ear. "'Jacuzzi?' I said. "'Dame straight jacuzzi,' Ellie said, "'sdenly jumping up and grabbing a towel "'and the second champagne bottle sitting in a bucket of melting ice.

"'I've been wanting to try that thing all night.' "'The jacuzzi was actually located outside "'on the spacious balcony which allowed guests to relax in the warm, "'jet-driven waters while enjoying the scenery of the beach-view below. "'Helly barely had the towel around her nakedness, "'and I, once again, admired her life and athletic body as she disappeared outside to get the jacuzzi going. Soon I could hear the water beginning to flow into the jacuzzi as Ellie yelled.

Hey, hurry up gunnery, Sergeant Grandpa. Grandpa? I yelled back, rolling out of bed and wrapping a towel around me. Woman, I've deployed more. I've deployed more, repeated Ellie, imitating me in a mocking tone. I've defended more. I've attacked more. I've patrolled more.

I've fought more. I've kissed more office a bud. Heck, I've even met Bigfoot. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Are you coming or not? Silhouetted by the moonlight. I could just see Ellie climbing into the jacuzzi. Smart ass, I said.

Instead of going directly outside, I headed into the bathroom and took a quick cold shower to rinse away all the sweat which I'd worked up earlier, despite the cool winter breeze flowing into the room from outside. I got out and towered off before steps. stepping naked outside onto the balcony. The boardwalk below us was still brightly lit as I stared down at the torn, a majestic statue of King Neptune,

which stood and reigned from his own special pedestal on the boardwalk to the left of the hotel. Most of the partiers and revelers had already gone home, but there were still more than a few folks walking around getting in that last drink of the new year, or trying to make that last attempt to attract that special friend for the evening. Ellie scooted over and poured some ice-cold champagne into a glass of me as I climbed into the jacuzzi. The jets churned the hot water around us, in massaging waves as steam rose into the cool night air. I tried to ignore the sharp pain in my back from where the hot water splashed over the scratches Ellie had left as I put my arm around her and held her close.

We toasted again and took a sip of champagne. Then Ellie snuggled up against me. For a while we just relaxed. relaxed in silence, watching the dark clouds dance in front of a bright winter moon as the soft hum of the jacuzzi washed caressing waves of hot water over us. I could feel my eyes getting heavy, and I happily contemplated drifting off to sleep in this idyllic setting. So, Ellie suddenly exclaimed with a splash of water that brought me back to full weightfulness

and sobriety, she set her glass aside. Oh, I thought, here it comes. "'Creepy doctor, right?' "'I said. "'Why not?' Ellie persisted. "'Come on, Fox. "'Your stories are good. "'I mean, why wouldn't you want them to be read?'

"'I shrugged my shoulders. "'I don't know. "'I really just wrote them for myself "'so that I wouldn't forget the event. "'I guess, well, I don't know.' "'Yeah, but that stuff happened right,' said Ellie. "'I mean, those stories are true right. "'You've actually experienced that weird

stuff. I mean, I'm not the only one who... She stopped suddenly. I set my glass down and looked Ellie in the face. Her long, light blonde hair clung close to her, framing the face of the most beautiful girl I'd ever dated against the bright moonlight. Ellie had never been one to be short of words. However, here she was now, breathing hard and struggling to find the words to say what was on her mind. Sweetheart, did something happen to you? Did you experience something? I asked. You... You promise you won't think I'm nuts, replied Ellie.

Hey, I said. I made Italian soldiers chase a ghost in Zirko Valley in Afghanistan. I got chased by Bigfoot while trained to be a cavalry scout in Pennsylvania, and... Oh, yeah, my cousin's artillery unit blew away some mythical Batwoman monster in the Philippines, so... Ellie pushed me down into the water, playfully.

So you better not think I'm nuts, mister, because I'll leave you and not look back because there are ten guys to every smoking hot chick like me around here. Blah, blah, blah, blah, I replied. Are you going to tell me what happened to you? Or are you going to keep telling me some fantasy story about some mythical guy from around here who could put up with your crazy ex?

Damn it, said Elie. Where's a handful of ice when you need it? Ellie's expression suddenly turns serious, as she sat up. She turned to look at me and sighed deeply. After a second she said, Do you remember my last night on shore duty? I returned her gaze with an inquisitive look.

Yeah, I answered. It was a couple of weeks ago, wasn't it? The Navy assigned you to be part of the small Navy presence aboard the battleship USS Wisconsin. I thought back on what I knew of the battleship USS Wisconsin. It was one of four Iowa-class battleships designed and built during World War II in order to go toe to toe to toe with the gigantic Imperial Japanese Navy battleships, which the Japanese have put to sea such as the mighty

battleship Yamoto. The Wisconsin displaced 58,000 tons fully loaded, had a length of just under 890 feet, and had a crew complement of almost 2,000 officers and enlisted sailors. She joined the USS Pacific Fleet in 1944 and mounted three massive gun turrets. two-four and one aft, each turret housing three mighty 16-inch guns which could fire a 2,700-pound high-explosive shell in excess of 20 miles. She was also outfitted with 25-inch guns and had an additional 80-40-millimeter and 50-20mm guns for close-in defense. Though the Wisconsin did not participate in any battleship versus battleship engagements, she did take part in many fire support operations against Japanese targets in the waning months of world. World War II. After the war, in 1948, the mighty battleship was decommissioned and placed

in reserve status. However, this was to be short-lived, as the Wisconsin was again recalled to duty, this time to aid in the fighting against the communist North Koreans and Chinese during the Korean War. It was during this time when the Wisconsin joined the naval gunline of warships which poured heavy, high explosive shells on the enemy shore positions almost on a daily basis. The Wisconsin served until 1958. When she was again decommissioned and kept in reserve status for nearly 20 years before in 1988, the United States caught up the aging warrior to join the fleet once again. This time the USS Wisconsin was modernized to fight a new and more powerful enemy. All but 12 of her 5-inch guns were replaced by batteries of Tomahawk and harpoon missiles

and her 20mm and 40mm guns were replaced by more effective, computer-guided 20-millimeter phalanx weapon systems. In 1991, the USS Wisconsin answered the call to deploy to the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Desert Storm, and together with her sister battleship, the USS Missouri, reigned high-explosive hell on Iraqi army fortified armored units and sank over a dozen Iraqi naval ships with her 16-inch guns. The Wisconsin's guns finally fell silent after the war and in September 1991 she was designed to the reserve fleet where she sat silently for nearly a decade. Then on December the 7th 2000 the anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor

the Wisconsin was towed down the Elizabeth River and birthed next to the National Maritime Museum, Nauticcates, in the heart of downtown Norfolk, Virginia, where she was towed down. rest to this day, serving as a museum ship that welcomes tens of thousands of tourists from around the world every year. A very small presence of Navy and personnel are rotated through the Nauticus to act as goodwill ambassadors to the many civilian visitors and retired sailors who once served aboard the Wisconsin, tour guides and liaisons for Navy-sponsored special events which often occur on her proud decks. But perhaps the most important task for the small cadre of sailors attached to the Wisconsin, is to act as watch standards for the ship.

The USS Wisconsin was not completely out of the fleet. She was simply put into mothball status, and as such, by proclamation of Congress, the Wisconsin was not to be altered in any way that would hinder her from returning to combat. The ship must be maintained and preserved using catholic protection to prevent metal corrosion, dehumidification systems to protect wiring and electrical systems, and areas of the ship which were still considered sensitive and not open to the public were to be secured. This usually required one sailor to stay alone aboard the ship until midnight, acting as a sort of security guard, checking to ensure hatches are closed,

sensitive areas are sealed off, dehumidification systems are functioning correctly, and making sure there are no storeways looking for a place to sleep for the night. Ellie usually drew this duty once or twice a week, and actually she quite enjoyed it as it allowed her to pull up her favourite creepy doctor on her cell phone get a favourite Dr Pepper Drink and listen to the lady's spooky tale of horror

being read to her in a smooth tone of voice which actually made me quite jealous well I didn't have a voice that didn't sound like I was constantly yelling at boot camp recruits but the last night that she had sure duty was different Ellie came home at around two in the morning

a full hour later than she usually arrived home. She was sweating even though it was mid-December. She was nervous and shaking, and she smelled of alcohol. The cheap stuff I could tell. Her usually well-pressed uniform was dishevelled. Instead of sitting and talking a while as we usually did when she came home from watch duty, she walked past the living room and into the kitchen

where she poured herself two or three shots of brandy into a tumbler, gulped it down with shaking hands, when they went to bed. She never once looked at me or spoke to me. Now, Ellie had always been open and honest with me about everything she did. After all, we were both career military. Well, things happen. Ellie admitted to me before that, on her last six-month terrorist-busting crews aboard her destroyer,

she'd had affairs with three of her senior chiefs, two of whom were married. Like me, they were all older than her, and outranked her. just the way she liked them. I imagined that tonight she probably had a sexual encounter with one of her senior chiefs, probably in the magazine room beside one of those gun turrets mounted on the Wisconsin. I didn't bring the subject up the next morning as I got ready for duty, as I knew Ellie would tell me what happened when she felt the time was right. Instead, however, the next day,

Ellie began to get on her kick of bugging me to submit my military supernatural stories to her, creepy doctor friend. Well, actually, I was assigned to the Nordicus Naval Museum next to where the USS Wisconsin is birthed. No one's assigned to the Wisconsin, said earlier. Oh, and it's N. Creepen. What are you talking about? I said.

As if I didn't know what you were just thinking, Fox, she answered. You move your lips when you're in deep thoughts. Okay, I said. What happened to you aboard the Wisconsin? in that night. I was fully expecting to hear a torrid story of how her and some married senior chief and the USS Wisconsin went to battle stations, said Ellie. Oh, I knew it, I said. Wait, what? You didn't have some hot passion and affair with some senior ranking guy in the Gunn magazine tower? What? said Ellie, pulling away from me and sitting up. Hot water and steam flying everywhere.

No. Because I'd totally cheat on you with some hot chick if I could do it in the gun turret of a battleship, I continued. Fox, she said, leaning close and pointing a finger in my face. I swear I'm going to throw your stupid army ass off this balcony and shoot you as you fall with my nine millimeter just because, well, I reached forward and wrap my arms around her, and she reluctantly let me pull her close. She was breathing hard and her heart was pounding in her chest. I'm sorry, honey, I whispered. You better be, you jerk, she replied. You think I'd wait until my last night on short duty to cheat on you with some other hot senior chief? Oof, too-shay, I said.

Anyway, you said that the Wisconsin went to battle stations. Yes, she answered. You mean with the claxons blaring and the whistle's blowing and the horn sounding and whenever the heck else happens when you Navy guys get ready to make really loud booming noises. Yeah, something like that, Ali said. Well, the Wisconsin going to battle stations would have been my second guest

if the first one wasn't that you were cheating on me. I said, where were you? Ellie rolled over and sat back down in the bubbling to Cusey. The cold air had chilled her up a body and she sank into the steaming water up to her chin. I was below.

down about two decks, checking on the dehumidifier operating gauges. It was near midnight when the generator-driven lights suddenly dimmed, and the red warning lights over the pee-ways began to flash and blare. Then this voice came over the intercom, ordering everyone to get to their duty stations and prepare their sections for the ship firing. Honey, I said, I'm not too familiar with naval lingo and ship-gunnery firing procedures. Can you dump it down for me, your infantry style?

If I dumped it down anymore, said Ellie, I'd have to draw stick figures for you in crayon. But the bottom line is, when a ship like the Wisconsin fires a broadside, one side of the ship would literally lift out of the water from the recoil of all those heavy-cali guns firing at once. Ellie's knees were pulled into her chest, and she hugged them with her arms. She was staring off into space. I could hear sailors yelling, others giving orders, and the sound of running steps pounding up and down the pee-way. I couldn't see anyone directly, but out of the corner of my eye

could see dozens of sailors running to the stations. I felt tossed around as if people were bumping into me on that peeway as they ran past. Also, it wasn't cold anymore. It was hot and humid, sort of like a stifling tropical humid, and it smelled of sweat, oil, stale air and seas. I didn't know what to do, Fox. So I just shut my eyes and put my hands out of my ears to drown out the noise. of that blaring horn.

Just crouched down in the corner of that peeway next to a hatch which should have been closed but was now wide open. Then I heard this voice in front of me saying What are you doing down there, shipmate? Are you hurt? Why are you in your dress whites instead of your dungarees? I looked up to see two sailors looking down at me,

confused expressions on their faces. They were real, I mean, they were solid, real human beings. not spectral forms and then one of them said golly it's a girl what are you doing here i stood up straight and ran forward i ran forward right through the bodies of the two sailors standing there and crossed the open hatch i knew this ship like the back of my hand but i was suddenly lost in the maze of narrow corridors and peeways i turned a corner and pressed my back against the bulkhead trying to catch my breath around the corner i heard the two sailors running after me. One of them said, where did she go? And the other one answered, she just vanished.

Maybe she's a ghost. And his partner said, how can she have been a ghost? The Navy would never let females serve aboard combat warships. I was just around the corner on my knees and crying. All of a sudden the entire ship exploded with a loud, boom, it sounded like a million lightning strikes hitting all at once. The Starboard part of the ship actually lifted up and we rocked a port. I was thrown off balance as I just realized that the Wisconsin had fired an entire brawlside of all nine of her 16-inch guns right in the middle of downtown Norfolk. While I got up and began to run to the nearest steps, which would lead to the upper deck

of the ship. The Wisconsin rocked again with the sound of her secondary weapons, or five-inch guns, as she continued to fire into the city. Ellie hung her head, a wet blonde hair falling in front of her face. The Wisconsin fired her main batteries of 16-inch guns again and the ship rocked violently. I kept losing my balance, and my ears were ringing from the concussive explosions of the guns, and I could smell the smoke and cordite in the air. All of a sudden I started to get visions of our statues and monuments being torn down,

stars and buildings being destroyed, and our city on fire as people ran and yelled. It was as if the USS Wisconsin was putting these images of violence and destruction into my head. I attempted to embrace her, but she pulled away. I was utterly exhausted when I finally opened the hatch to the quarterdeck and which, well, lit outside and I expected to see fires and destruction, the city in flames and people screaming and dying, but I saw nothing. The night was quiet and serene.

I was drenched in sweat, but the cool breeze which made. met me when I opened the hatch, made me freeze. The moon was bright, just like it is tonight. I ran to the edge of the ship and looked over the railing and saw the tranquil scene of a few people taking peaceful strolls along the sidewalk at Town Point Park next to the river. The waterside was still open, and a few people were still having drinks at the baths. So that's why you smell like a brewery when you came home that night, I said. You're a genius, said Ellie. You figure that out all by yourself. Yeah, I needed a few drinks just to calm my nerve so that I could drive home. Hang on a second, hunt. I said as I grabbed my smartphone. Let me see something. I poured up a

website of combat operations of the USS Wisconsin. Your last night of sure duty at the Nordicus was 20th of December, the night that the Wisconsin went to battle stations. Let's see. Oh, Here we go. It says here that on the 20th of December, 1951, off the Korean shoreline, the USS Wisconsin participated in a coordinated air surface bombardment of Wonson to neutralize pre-selected communist targets in support of Allied forces ground operations. The Wisconsin destroyed several communist watercraft in Wonson Harbor, with a five-inch gun before she shifted fire to rain tons of high explosions. on a communist counterattack, forcing the enemy to abandon their assaults. Ellie finally leaned in close to me again. So you believe me? You don't think I'm crazy. You're crazy, I said, but I believe you.

I looked down at Ellie, it was making herself comfortable, cuddling next to me as the steaming jets of water continued to roll over us. What do you think it all means? Ellie pursed her lips, contemplating. I've been thinking about that. They say that the spirits and sense of duty and commitment of those who'd served aboard them still inhabit our capital ships. The Wisconsin served America in times of crisis.

She'd then go to sleep when she wasn't needed, only to wake again when America was in danger. Maybe the USS Wisconsin is awakening again. Maybe there's some danger coming to America. the future i don't know i sat up scooting over slightly so i was sitting cross-legged facing ellie i gently slid a strand of her blonde hair away from her face and took her hands into mine honey it's a new year our monuments and statues aren't being torn down our stores and buildings aren't being destroyed our cities aren't on fire and people sure as hell aren't yelling in the streets i'm smiled reassuringly.

Trust me, Ellie. 2020 is going to be a great year. Promise? She said. I promise, I answered. And we kissed well into the night. Hey Ontario, come on down to BetMGMGM casino

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. I've been many things at different points in my life. I'm an eight-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps who served in the Gulf War. I was, for a relatively short time, a husband and father. I've worked in construction, trucking, food service, and many other menial jobs. More recently, I've had some success at building a solid career selling insurance.

A career choice I'm hoping will ultimately last, unlike the last four or five times I've tried. I think at the ripe old age of 51, I'm finally starting to think clearly about what to expect from life after decades of false starts and missed opportunities. I still struggle with depression and self-doubt about. the failure of my marriage and how far I've drifted from my children but I've gotten used to frequent disappointments in my life. For years I also struggled with a moderate case of agoraphobia and it's only been within the last few years that I sought serious treatment for it. For anyone unaware, agoraphobia is a generalized but intense fear of certain places and settings and the image of a

housebound agoraphob largely stems from a desire to avoid at all cost these dreaded places. I was never fully housebound like many people with agoraphobia, as I instead simply tried to power through my fear and nascent panic wherever possible, at considerable cost in stress and anxiety. It was only after suffering a mild heart attack last year that I finally sought serious therapy for my condition, because the stress of ignoring it all these years is probably killing me. People with agoraphobia tend to experience this fear in specific environments that trigger feelings of vulnerability in dread. In my case, I'm terrified of wide open spaces, particularly in remote and isolated areas. I remember in the summer of 97, not long after I left the Marines. I took a road

trip to Las Vegas from my home in Riverside, California. Interstate 15 runs right across the flat expanse of the Mojave Desert between these two cities. Throughout the trip, I had to stop three times to have a panic attack at the side of the road. I guess this is why I've always preferred to live in crowded cities and why I travel so little, despite the irresistible wanderlust of my youth. I've known for years what exactly triggered my development of agoraphobia, and you'd think knowing this would make it easier to work through it. I only wish it was that easy in my case. What I experience in those dark days in March of 1991 is clear in my mind

even though I know on an intellectual level that everything that happened should not could not be possible and this uncertainty has been a dark cloud over my mind ever since then on one level I know that my anxiety about what I saw is probably overblown but I'm worrying about something of which I have no control and I can't even confirm he's actually the truth

but on the other hand, I can't help but feel that I should be worried that dismissing it would be like ignoring a speeding train when you're seconds away from being hit by it. When I began my therapy, I was told that writing and journaling my thoughts would be cathartic and relieve my anxieties. I can't say for sure whether it will or won't. But putting it all on paper might help me answer a few of my own questions. Like I said before, I'm a veteran of the Marine Corps who served during the Gulf War of 1991. I enlisted in the Marines in the summer of 87 when I was 19 years old. I graduated the previous year and spent my first year after high school attending community college and working a menial job delivering pizzas.

I had always intended to join the Marines, but as a promise to my parents, I gave the whole higher education experience a try before deciding for sure. Well, after a year of hitting the books and delivering one too many pizzas to former classmates, I was ready to make the plunge. I wasn't motivated by any sense of patriotic duty. I was never all that patriotic. But my own father had served in the Navy during Vietnam,

and his stories about all the friends he had in the Navy and all the exotic places he'd been were what drove me. That, and maybe I watched a few too many war movies as a kid, including such classics as the longest day and pattern. The chance to make new friends, see the world, and experience true camaraderie was irresistible to a lonely young man who'd never been outside of the United States. Fast forward three and a half years,

and I'm part of a tank crew in Bravo Company, first tank battalion, U.S. Marines, and we're posted in some remote desert camp in Saudi Arabia just south of the Kuwaiti border, waiting with bated breath for the order to breach the border and drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Our battalion of M60A1 pattern tanks had been waiting, coiled and ready to strike for three months,

hearing distant shell fire from Iraqi artillery many kilometres ahead. That's right, we were still using pattern tanks when we went over the top in the Gulf. While the army was almost fully equipped with the latest and greatest Abrams tanks seen in all those pictures of the war, we were still making use of the last generation of tanks in the Marines. Anyone who served in the Marines knows that when it comes to logistics and procurement, The core has always been like the red-headed stepchild of the family, so we just made do with what we had. But that's not a knock on the venerable M-60 pattern tank.

Despite the design being 30 years old by this point, it was still an excellent and fierce and fighting machine. Throughout the years, the design had also been continuously upgraded with new equipment to keep its performance well up to par with other modern main battle tanks. Our machine, which we'd affectionately nicknamed Hellhound, and received the standard suite of upgrades, advanced modern optics, a gun stabiliser, an explosive reactive armour package that works.

I'm glad to say that our crew had complete confidence in our tank. I can personally attest that our machine was more than up to the task of taking on any tank or armoured vehicle the Iraqis had, like the T-55, T-62, or even the dreaded T-72. There were four men in our crew. I was the gunner, which in my admittedly biased opinion was the most important part of the crew. Our tank commander, TC for shorts, was a guy named Paul Hiller, who was a few years older than me, a steady, competent professional. The loader was a squat muscular guy named Gilbert Castro, who like me was from California, and the youngest. Our driver, Tim Lorry, who was rather highly strong, but still managed a very dry sense of

of humor. We'd all trained together for two years at Camp Pendleton and later 29 palms, and now that we sat on the brink of a real combat operation that we'd hoped for all that time, we were restless and impatient. Our isolated camp in the middle of the Arabian desert was at the literal ass end of nowhere. And being that we were so close to jumping off, we were confined there for several weeks. When Iraqi forces tried to invade Saudi Arabia and take the city of Khafji in January, we were on the edge of our seats, hoping we could finally see some real action. All these months we'd entertained dreams of racing forward across the desert like Rommel, taking the fight to the enemy. But we were disappointed when other units received that honour instead.

It wasn't until late February that we finally got the order that we'd all been waiting for, to breach the border and cross into Kuwait to drive out the occupying Iraqi forces. I admit, I was more excited and thrilled than scared. Might seem like a stupid attitude for a young man to rush so willingly into war, unaware of what he would encounter. But we have to understand. We spent years training for this sort of operation. We saw ourselves as consummate professionals,

like tradesmen doing their jobs. We were eager for a chance to actually apply our skills and give Saddam Hussein and his much-vaunted Republican guard a swift kick in the nuts. Such is the gung-ho attitude of the Marine Corps. In the small hours of the morning of February 24, 1991, we and the rest of the First Marine Division got the order to advance into Kuwait. As a part of Task Force Papa Bear, we surged forward over the sandworm that marked the Saudi Kuwait border,

and we encountered, not a lot, actually. We tore through several areas blocked by Barb Wyer, but actual resistance by Iraqi forces was quite limited. Every now and then, an enemy unit would half-heartedly fire upon us, mostly just a few shots for honor's sake, and surrender as we returned fire and closed on their position. Iraqi troops, who we were told were battle-hardened after years fighting Iran, were actually quite tired and unhappy, and only too willing to surrender.

I can't blame them. Man like Saddam Hussein is hardly worth dying for, So for the first few days, that was the most of what we encountered. Marine units collected thousands of prisons, took few casualties, and only occasionally met the Iraqi armed units. It bears mentioning that we didn't directly encounter these enemy tanks, and we wouldn't see a serious tank battle until a few days later. On a few occasions we fired upon objects we thought could be enemy attacks, but which often turned out to be already wrecked vehicles. It was only on the 27th when we finally reached. reached Kuwait City, that we got the chance for a real battle that we'd been waiting for all this time.

The battle for Kuwait City International Airport was one of the largest tank battles of the war, though much of it actually took place in the suburbs surrounding the airport, and that battle did not disappoint. We encountered a large force of Iraqi army and Republican Guard tanks just short of the airport, and in a brief but incredibly tense battle, we just wipe the floor with our enemy. We destroyed over a hundred tanks and armoured vehicles in that action, and I scored myself my first real kill in armoured combat. Well, the whole crew takes collective credit for such achievements, but being the gunner and the one who pulled the trigger, so to speak,

I was quite satisfied with myself for a time. As we pushed forward, the TC spotted an Iraqi T62, skulking behind a line of destroyed buildings. Presumably trying to flank us, and I'd traverse the main gun and put him in my side. At a distance of 850 meters, I put a 105 millimetre round right through the turret of the tank, just as it gave me a beautiful side silhouette, just like the ones we get in training. That shot visibly rocked the entire enemy tank, as if it was struck by a boulder,

a large plume of smoke followed by a brilliant jet of flame erupted from the top hatch, which must have reached nearly 20 feet into the air. I was quite proud of that shot, and scoring my first. first armour kill, but after a few moments I was struck by the real gravity of what I'd just done. Despite the fierce kill-em-all attitude cultivated in us throughout our training, doing the actual deed is quite different. When you see an enemy tank, you tend to think of your enemy as being the machine itself, as if the human beings in the crew don't even exist. But when I came to the realization that my shot had probably just killed all four men in that tank, some may be hit by the shell

itself or who were incinerated when the ammunition cooked off. I was struck by a strange feeling for several days afterwards. Even though the moral context of war would make my action somewhat more explicable, I couldn't help but feel that I committed something truly serious. After all, I'd ended four human lives with the pull of a trigger. Nobody escaped the flaming wreck of that T-62. But despite knowing that they would have likely done the same to me in their position, I was still awestruck and disturbed by the feeling of such power and choosing to use it so destructively. But, like I said, I guess that's just war.

And there's nothing like a war to teach you that morality is a fickle beast. I still felt this way, even as I also fired on and destroyed two Iraqi BMPs and an armoured car, a moment of brief exultation, followed by an assent but palpable sensation of guilt. But I've learned through the years that even though regrets can set you on a better path, a little good can come of dwelling on such things that you can't take back. Learning this is what kept me afloat all these years, and I try to impart on others the moral perspective I developed back then. But, well, I digress.

The ground campaign in Kuwait was rather short, only about four days, and what Saddam Hussein had promised would be the mother of all battles, had mostly been a catastrophic route of Iraqi forces that badly damaged his international prestige. For our part, it was decidedly disappointing, especially compared to what we were told to expect. But we got the war we craved for so long, despite its disappointments and unexpected reality checks. For a few days, we held our position at a place in the western reaches of Kuwait city,

known as Al-Jahara, as other forces pushing around Kuwait through southern Iraq were mopping up, enemy forces trying to retreat. It was during this phase that controversial battles like the highway of death or the Battle of Rumaila took place, which were controversial because they happened after the ceasefire and were fought against Iraqi units who were technically complying with international mandate to withdraw from Kuwait. March 2nd, we received our own mission as part of this effort, with the intent to block the retreat of any stragglers trying to retreat into Iraq by backroads in northwestern Kuwait. We were to conduct a road march across the desert,

take up a blocking position on a road that ran parallel to the Iraq-Quaite border, where we would stop anybody trying to force their way through. The blocking position we were meant to assume was actually over the border inside Iraq itself, although this wasn't strictly unusual, as other coalition units were also well inside Iraq. Early that afternoon, our platoon of four tanks, led by our platoon commander Lieutenant Ratner,

set out on our road march as per our orders. The distance was about 100 kilometres, although we were fully fuelled up and a patent tank can do 500 kilometres easy at a reasonably efficient pace. The whole journey was about three hours, although as we were within 7 to 8 kilometres from our objective, we were suddenly given the order to turn around and return to base. This was irritating,

as we were glad to have another mission and we'd driven all this way for nothing. just as the weather was starting to turn a large chamois or windstorm was forming off the northwest and the idea of being caught in the sandstorm in the middle of nowhere was not very attractive especially given a shamal can last several days after a brief pause we plotted the route we would use to return since the war was pretty much over and because we were in the middle of a trackless desert we decided there was no risk in taking the same route back But a shamal moves quite quickly, and after only 20 minutes we found ourselves overtaken in the midst of a ferocious sandstorm that completely obscured our view. In these conditions, we had to adapt our methods to avoid becoming separated. While some individuals floated the idea of simply staying put in waiting out the storm, this was quickly dismissed, as it could last several days. Instead, we slowed our pace to under 20 kilometres per hour, turned on our forward lights,

made a point of staying within ten metres of the vehicle in front. Likewise, the commanders of each tank were urged to open their hatches and direct their drivers, despite the blowing sands. They were expected to cover up and bear with it. They would just have a clear view of the tank in front. Both the gunners and commanders could also use their thermal optics to look out for the vehicle ahead and avoid getting separated. Our radios wouldn't work all that well in this weather, but we did our best stay in contact with the others, as we moved out, kept a close eye on the thermal signature of the diesel exhaust of the vehicle ahead. We were last in the column, so it was on me to pay extra attention.

Hiller, our T.C., had his head out of the top hatch, letting in gales of wind and sand inside the turret. I think at least a pound of sand must have gone down my collar into my uniform. With all of that mess inside our turret, Hiller got fed up and closed the hatch, ordering me and the driver to pay extra attention to where we were going. Some commentators later described the Gulf War as a GPS war because of the influence the system had on our tactics. With an our platoon, only the platoon commander's vehicle had it, so I did my best to lock eyes on that diesel plume,

while also scanning for unlikely threats we might encounter. It was then that we started having trouble keeping up. Our radio, which we needed to stay in contact with the rest, began to fail at the worst possible time. That in itself wasn't unusual. Sometimes radios and other comms can just go haywire or crap out without apparent reason. But without it, we only had visual contact with the other vehicles.

Lieutenant Ratna was a pretty good officer. But he could be rather erratic and make snap decisions without always telling everybody what was going on. I notice that the tank ahead of us was slowly inching away, apparently going faster than us. Hillare shouted down to Laurie to pick up the pace and keep up with the rest, but with visibility so poor, speeding up only did so much to improve the situation. Worse still, that distinctive outline of a tank in the thermos was becoming hazy,

probably from all the wind, and it constantly got harder to see our fellows ahead of us. The column speed seemed to constantly increase, despite gunning the throttle as much as we considered safe in this situation, they kept creeping away. We were all starting to get concerned, and Hiller, who was working with the radio, tried his best to restore comms with the rest. After smacking that radio case and issuing a colourful rant, Hiller finally gave up on the radio for the time being. At that point the tank ahead of us, it started to fade from visual range. We'd nearly doubled the speed of our march, but with the constant blowing sands, the road we followed was starting to get buried and fade from sight.

Finally, after a few tense minute, the rest of the column faded from sight. Laurie kept moving forward in the hopes that we would find them again, but this proved futile. Hiller went on another bout of swearing and implying that Lieutenant Ratner had carnal knowledge of his mother, and decided to use his flare gun in the hopes that somebody else was paying attention. He opened the hatch and fired our flare pistol in the air, though it didn't do much good. The wind simply pushed it way off course and quickly. disappeared. Now we were all starting to get worried. At this point we were unofficially lost and separated from our unit, stuck in the middle of a trackless

desert with virtually no visibility. The road was no longer visible, having been buried by sand, so we couldn't reliably follow that either. Laurie kept us moving at a slower pace in the same general direction, hoping that we might get a break in the storm soon so that we could see where we were going. After a short time, him, Heller told him to stop. Moving forward without knowing where, could risk putting us way of course, especially when the road was no longer visible.

And if we strayed too far into the sand, we might risk getting bogged down and throwing a track. When we were still in camp, we'd heard about other units getting lost in sandstorms while on manoeuvres, and this was the first time it had happened to us. Hiller suggested, and we agreed, that we should stay put for now

until the storm had calmed down somewhat, and then do our best to restore comms with any friendly units nearby. Using a compass and simply heading straight east from our position seemed logical as we were bound to encounter a friendly unit in that direction. Again, we were still concerned with the idea of getting bogged down in the sand dunes, so waiting for the road to clear seemed the best bet. So we remained in our position for several hours, hoping for the storm to relent. The evening was falling, and the storm not only seemed to,

as strong as ever, but it seemed even to get worse. Pushing through a sandstorm in the daylight was difficult, and doing it at night seemed out of the question. We made the decision to remain there for the evening, a rather unpopular one, as this pointless aborted mission had gone on far too long at this point, but we apparently had no other choice. Well, I've slept inside our tank before, and trust me when I say that it's not ideal. But sleeping outside on the rear engine deck, digging a sleeping hole in the sand was an even more uncomfortable proposition, so we rested in our tank, taking shifts for watch. Our auxiliary engine was running so we could keep on the heaters and optics, but trying to sleep in that cramped space was difficult. I imagine it was worse for Lorry, because the driver's position was even more cramped, although it was more reclined.

Lear kept tinkering with the radio while Castro and I argued about our favorite basketball teams. This is a big-time Bulls fan, despite being from California. I didn't expect too much sleeping in the tank anyway. Finally, Hillair lost patience and decided we should try to move out anyways, relying on our compass to keep us oriented east, since we couldn't see the sun. You warned Laurie to take it easy, if we seemed to get bogged down in the sand, although the desert was, thankfully flat, so we wouldn't have to actually climb a sand dune. Laurie turned us east, put it in gear, and moved out at a slow, cautious pace.

Moving across the sand was slow going and Hilaire was worried about how much fuel we were burning compared to travelling on the road. We'd used about a fifth of our diesel fuel getting this far, so we didn't worry too much about making it, even if the engine was struggling. We tried to give a path straight east, but often deviated our course to go around troublesome bits of ground like sand dunes. It was then that something really bizarre started happening. It was still dark and dusty outside,

and without seeing the sky we needed our compass to keep us oriented the right way. But our compass began to act very strangely. The needle wavered and began spinning around, not keeping any strong orientation, and would snap back and forth even as we travelled in the same direction. Elair, baffled by this development, ordered Laurie to stop. I have no idea what sort of phenomenon could make a compass behave like that, but it was certainly happening to us.

We were worried before, but this bizarre event now had us all on edge. The compass would briefly seem to fix itself, but every few minutes it would go haywire again, and the fact that we needed to keep going around certain spots didn't help keep us on track. We decided, yet again, to simply stop and wait for daylight to regain our bearings, thinking we had not gone all that far off the road since our brief detour. Around dawn, we decided once again to have a look around to see where we'd ended up. The sandstorm had calmed down somewhat, as we had apparently found a gap in the storm with relatively clear skies. The storm front still raged to the east and west of us, so this respite would likely be short-lived.

We were all horribly dismayed to see that the landscape around us looked nothing like anything we'd see. seen so far, with no visible landmarks, paths or anything. Even our tracks across the desert had been swallowed by the sand. All around us were rolling sand dunes, and with a storm on the horizon in both directions, nothing was visible beyond our position. That's how it is during a shaman, millions of tons of sand being kicked up in the air and deposited elsewhere, seeming to move entire hills across the wastes. This is what had apparently happened to us. Our surroundings had almost completely changed, and in the middle of a trackless desert, that was a dangerous situation. Now that it was the next morning, our absence and lack of communication would surely have been noticed by company commander.

Well, we reasoned that a search effort would likely have been underway by this point. This assumption made us feel better, even though our radio was still not working. Likewise, with coalition aircraft being highly active in this region, we thought we could be spotted by a passing plane who would relay our position to friendly units in the area. But this optimism wouldn't last. The storm was starting to pick up again, with the walls of sand closing in on us and no aircraft were becoming visible. That was extremely odd to us.

Throughout the campaign, there was a constant stream of fighters and bombers overhead at all hours, striking positions throughout Kuwait and Iraq, and we'd seen plenty as we'd set out on this very mission. Perhaps, we thought, they were grounded because of the weather, and once the Shemal had passed, they might have a better time finding us. But the Shemal could last days, and it might be longer to find us in our new position well off the beaten path. We all got out of the tank, hoping to stretch our legs,

relieve ourselves, and maybe spot a gap in the storm that we could exploit. I'd gone off to take a piss, even though it was still quite windy, while Hilaire had stayed back in the tank, having it out with the radio again. I was on my way back to the tank, incredibly ticked off because the wind had caused me to get piss all over the front of my uniform, when I heard Hilaire and Castro shouting excitedly. According to them, the radio was working again, which was a major relief. We all rushed back to the tank, confident that we just found a way out of this mess,

and we all crowded inside the turret to see what was going on. Hilaire was fiddling with the radio set, adjusting the band and trying to get a clean signal. He stopped when something sounding like a voice came over the speaker. But it was a deep, muffled, static-filled voice with unintelligible words. But the rhythm and cadence definitely sounded like a person talking. This continued for several minutes as we watched with bated breath while Hilaire fiddled with the knobs,

with no apparent effect. That deep muffled speech just continued with short pauses, when Laurie pointed out that the words were repeating. It was just the same unintelligible phonemes in a sequence about 20 seconds long. That paused briefly before playing the same message, if it could be called a message. We were all stunned by this unexpected turn, and no matter how much Hiller fiddled with the knobs,

the sounds on the radio stayed exactly the same. Finally, after about five minutes, the signal simply cut out in the middle of the sequence, leaving only a low whisper of static. My heart sank into my stomach as I realised we were now again cut off from all communication from the outside world. But we all wondered out loud what signal we'd gotten over the radio. Hilaire had changed to every frequency in band, and still that same unintelligible speech over and over again.

Laurie speculated that the signal might have been a pre-recorded message like an air raid warning that we'd picked up by accident. We couldn't tell what was being said, so it could have been in a different language. I told him that the words didn't sound like Arabic and the voice seemed to be too deep to be human, like it was a computer or something. Near as we could figure, there might have been chatter from another coalition unit that spoke a different language like the French. But at this point, we were just spit-boiling. The fact was the radio signal had cut out and couldn't be reacquired, nor could any other signal be picked up. So the radio was back to being pretty much useless.

It was at least able to turn on, which it hadn't done the previous day. All the left to do was go back to our original plan of heading east, all the way to the Persian Gulf, if necessary, and hope that friendly units could help us out. being surrounded by sand dunes now complicated that as we'd now have a hard time of getting across them in whichever direction we went we couldn't even say exactly where we were because of the landscape all around us had completely changed but wandering the desert seemed better than staying put and dying of thirst and even though we had a fair amount of rations and water camping out in this place wasn't very appealing the storm was still going and now starting to close in the sky getting hazyer by the minute. We remounted our tank, set out again, and hoped that our eastward drive would come to fruition.

Getting out of the dunes was as difficult as we'd feared, and we all sat on the edge of the seats, listening to the engine roar, hoping desperately that the dreaded sound of a track being thrown wouldn't come. Finally, it seemed that we crested the hill and were moving down, and we saw that the dunes continued in that direction for miles. Elair was now starting to get seriously concerned about our fuel consumption. We had four-fifths of the tank left when we first turned back,

but now we only had three-fifths left, even though we'd only gone a fraction of the distance across the desert. The effort to climb up those dunes had taken a lot of fuel, and now with sand-dunes in every direction, and the sandstorm picking up again, we were all starting to despair. Hiller remained cool and ordered Laurie not to climb up any more hills and just stick to the low ground between them. Castro, however, was starting to get agitated. He was not quite yet 20 years old and in his short life he'd probably never been in a situation as bad as ours.

He was starting to pester Hiller and questioned him about where we were going. Did we have enough fuel? Are we sure this was the right way? And so on. Finally, Hiller snapped at him to calm down. and Castro retreated into himself, sulking. After a few hours, the engine started to overheat from the exertion, and we stopped to give it a chance to cool down.

The storm had slacked off again, and we all dismounted to do a maintenance check and scout around for a potential path. Elia decided to clean out the air filter while the engine was cooling off. Lori and I checked the track tension, and Castro was sent out to scout across the top of a sand dune for a way out. We'd gone far enough that the desert had flattened out a bit, with much more space in between the hills, and we took this as a good sign. Still, fuel was now a concern, and lacking any landmarks, we couldn't tell how much further we needed to go.

Castro returned from his scouting mission, saying that there was still no landmarks, but the ground to the south was much flatter, and probably easier to get across. Laurie and I went back to our work, thinking Castro would just mill around until we remounted. A few minutes later, we looked up to see that Castro had wandered off. He had one of the weapons issued to our crew, a Colt Commando, and we were worried what he might have gotten himself into. I climbed a hill to the west to get a view around to find him, and I saw him cautiously walking west, rifle in hand, as if he expected a threat. He was probably about a hundred metres away, scanning the horizon,

and didn't respond when I shouted his name. I ran out after him and caught up with him before he got too far, but he still didn't respond even when I came up next to him. He was absolutely fixated on some point in the distance that I couldn't recognize, and I practically had to shake him to get his attention. He acted like a man coming out of a trance. When I asked him what the hell he was doing, he answered, Nothing. I didn't see nothing, almost as if I were accusing him of something.

He abruptly turned around, singing his rifle, and briskly walked back in the direction of the tent. I was baffled by this strange behaviour, especially from a man like Castro who wasn't much more than a kid. Well, I chalked it up to the stress of the situation, but I still resolved to tell Hilaire about it, in case something escalated. I returned to the tank shortly after Castro and saw that Hilaire was still working on the engine and nursing some skin. knuckles. The engine had finally cooled down, but he said that the coolant was starting to pick up sand, which could clog the whole system. Unless we jerry-rigged some kind of water filter, we'd just have to deal with it and watch the engine temperature more carefully. I told him about Castro, and he said that he'd noticed similar behavior, and the normally verbose young man was

uncharacteristically quiet. Our concerns expressed, we remounted and proceeded south, towards the hopefully flatter terrain. We went south and east, trying to stick to low ground, and for a time we had relatively clear visibility in our path, so we could stay on a rough course. It was like this throughout the afternoon, with Laurie counting down the ticks on the fuel gauge. Out of nowhere, in the course of less than a minute, the storm brewed up again, more violently than at any point so far. We were all startled when we heard especially harsh. scales of wind and sand pelting against the outside of the tank, visibly dropped so low that even the thermals couldn't make out anything much more than 60

meters. Worse still, you even noticed some bright flashes of lightning, and if there was lightning, it could be rain, and in this train, a sudden downpour could cause a flash flood that would swamp our tank. The suddenness of the storm caught us all by surprise. We'd gotten used to the general ebb and flow of the weather, with periods of relative calm in between constant winds. I kept scanning the horizon through the thermal.

I started noticing some strange objects. Actually, they didn't even seem like just objects. I could swear that they were moving. At first I briefly panicked when I thought I saw a human outline, maybe a hostile enemy, but it sank low to the ground and tumbled across the sand like no living creature I knew of. I was thinking that perhaps it was some kind of loose debris, a tarp maybe, that had drifted across the desert in the storm.

But then I noticed that there were more of them. I was so stunned for a moment that I didn't immediately tell Hiller what was out there. I wasn't even sure what it was out there. There were at least three or four signatures in the thermal, all white-hot like you would expect from a person or animal. there was nothing about them that made them seem like a person. After all, what would a person be doing out there in a storm like this, in the middle of nowhere? I saw some of those signatures suddenly flip up, and I could swear that there was something vaguely human about that posture. When I told Hiller, he immediately got in his periscope and scanned in that direction, but he couldn't make out a thing.

Castro suddenly seemed even more agitated and froze up, just riveted to his seat. I wandered at that for a second, but kept scanning for these beings or whatever they were, not sure if they were hostiles or just wild animals. But as quickly as they came into view, they suddenly disappeared into the storm with no trace of their passing.

The sudden apparition and the brief panic at a cause left us all rattled for a time. We were definitively lost out in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert, with no clear clue where we were or what direction we should go. And now there was a possibility that we were trapped with some strange creatures in a blinding sandstorm. I say possibility, because I wasn't completely sure what I was seeing. Was it a living thing? Well, maybe because of the way it glowed in the thermal scope would suggest that it was. The storm continued to rage all around us as we moved further south and east,

and the pouting of sand against the turret hull grew stronger and stronger. Fuel was now getting worryingly low, as according to Lorry, we now had just under a third of a tank left, enough to get us 150 kilometres at an efficient speed, but we were not at an efficient speed. We were still trudging across open desert, burning more fuel than usual, and the possibility of having to hoof it from here to civilisation left us all deeply worried. Eventually, evening came, was still no sign of human habitation anywhere, and we knew what it meant, spending yet another night out in the open desert. As a Marine, I'm used to the idea of spending nights far from civilization,

but out here, totally alone, and with some strange creatures roaming about the wastes, I was starting to have serious doubts about my choice of career. When the storm finally eased off, we stopped to do our necessaries and call it an evening. Castro was being particularly fidgety, so we gave him the first watch. Exhausted as I was, having not slept much the previous night, I was able to get some quality shut-eye, curled up at the back of the turret floor under the load as ready rack. Since I had third watch, I was able to get a few hours in before my turn.

I was working by a lorry at 0,300 hours to begin my watch, although I wasn't thrilled about spending any time outside the tank in that storm. I opted to take my sidearm with me, in addition to the rifle. Whatever was out there, I'd take no chances. I sat outside the tank on the front glossy, next to the windows hatch, of surveying the scene. I was glad that I had a break in the storm, but this small comfort was rather short-lived.

The wind slowly picked up its pace, and once again the tank was shrouded in complete darkness. It was then that I was able to register a faint sound, indistinct at first, but which started to stand out as a high-pitched howl. If I didn't know better, I would have said it was the nasly hoot of an elk, but I knew it couldn't have been that. In a different situation, I might have dismissed it as a trick of the constant winds. But this time I was fully alert and on the lookout for any sign of the creatures from the previous day. I pounded on the hatch and Hiller almost immediately came out of it and wanted to know what was happening. I told him that I'd heard something out there, even though I couldn't see it, and that I wanted to be inside the tank if it showed up.

We both climbed back into the tank and I immediately got my position and scanned the horizon for anything. But to my disappointment, the thermal optic was on the frisk. and everything appeared hazy and dim. But even so, I could make out something in the distance. I was just about shitting bricks at this point, convinced that these were the creatures I'd seen yesterday. And even though I couldn't prove they were hostile, I just felt it.

Storm was making it difficult to see. But I recognised those forms, and I was sure they were getting closer. That howl was now slightly audible inside the tank, and everybody was on alert. We'd done numerous close combat drills before, practicing scenarios where enemy troops got in close enough to our vehicle

that we couldn't use the main weapons against them. But even our practice minds couldn't fathom just what kind of threat we faced. We stayed absolutely silent inside the tank for several minutes, trying to discern the howls from the ceaseless gales outside. The howling ceased abruptly, and Castro, who had gone white, with fear, suddenly jerked up from his seat. Through the turret wore behind him, we can make out

a faint scratching noise, like the pouring of an animal. We were so riveted by this that we were caught off guard by the harsh thunk on the turret behind me. I jumped at this and nearly brained myself on the turret roof, and a few seconds later, I could swear I heard something like laughter. It was a thin and sibilant sound, not human. at all, high-pitched and sinister. Then we heard a skittering sound across the roof of the turret, like a large creature scuttling across it. And Elair tried to look through the Coppola to see what it was.

But nothing was there. The scratching sound became more insistent, and now the pattering was happening across the entire outer surface of the turret. And sharp, screeching sounds came from the front, right over the port for the gunner's sight. Castro, who was fighting panic this entire time, finally lost it and began pounding on the turret walls, screaming and cursing, demanding whatever was outside to leave us alone.

First we were about to smack him and make him be quiet, but his outburst gave way to a moment of silence around the tank. When the attacks resumed, we all took Castro's cue and started banging on the walls, shouting and swearing, giving our best war faces, trying to scare off. the hostiles. Finally, they gave up their attack and ceased their scratching and banging on the outside. But as they made their retreat, I once again heard that horrible, sinister laugh fading into the night. Morning came with all of us completely drained. The attack during the evening had left us all shaken, and now, more than ever, we felt the urgency of our situation.

We all wanted to leave this area immediately, and Hilaire agreed with us, but the situation did not improve. We kept rolling onwards in the same direction for about an hour, when Hilaire suddenly ordered us to stop. None of us saw any reason for the delay, but we won't stop for a second before he jumped out through his hatch and strode in front of the tank. We all followed his lead, not knowing just what he had in mind. We caught up with him to see he was holding his head. head in his hands, growling, no, no, to himself. We asked what was wrong, and he rounded on us, pointed out, that it was impossible for us to have gone so far and not arrived anywhere near civilisation. We'd travelled well over a hundred kilometres since getting lost, but in all that

time we hadn't seen or discovered anything. There should have at least been a road or trail somewhere, or a village or hamlet. There should have been aircraft overhead, and even though we were lost, some kind of search effort must have been underway. But we'd neither seen nor encountered anything but endless hills of sand. He cursed himself for his decision to go off the main road when we first got separated from the column,

saying we should have stayed put and waited for a brick in the storm. But, well, he was right about one thing. We should definitely have encountered something by now, just by the sheer distance we'd travelled. Kuwait is a small country. It seemed impossible that we should be so hopelessly lost when we knew where we started from and how far we needed to go.

All we'd seen since then was nothing but rolling sand dunes that always seemed to be in a different place when you looked out at them. Our fuel was now perilously low, only about a quarter of a tank, and a day's worth of travel had gotten us nowhere. Had we wandered out of the world? into the desert even farther than we thought. We knew that heading east, even with a moderate

deviation to the south, should have gotten us to some place that we could recognize. But there was nothing but desert in all directions, and no sign whatsoever of human civilization anywhere in all that time. Unless Kuwait had magically gotten twice as large in the span of two days, this could not have happened. Hilaire was almost despondent. Seeing him start to lose it had a serious effect on us. All this time, Lorry was observing the horizon, which had now mostly cleared as the Shemal finally died down after all this time.

He got out to us while we listened to Hilaire, and we saw that he was pointing to some spot on the horizon that we couldn't make out at first. But he was insistent and kept pointing towards what he called a tower. And after a minute I saw just what he was pointing in. Far in the distance off to the west, I could faintly see a grey object, a tower like he described, and I could see that it actually glittered slightly in the sunlight. It was quite tall in the distance from where we stood,

hardly poking out above the hills, but it seemed attainable, and it most definitely was not a mirage. But it was to the west, deeper into the desert, in the complete opposite direction we'd resolved to go. This dissuaded us for a minute, but when we realised we'd endlessly driven east with no results, heading west towards a sign of civilization seemed totally rational to our desperate minds. All at once, our spirits lifted tremendously, and we decided then and there that we would turn west, making a dash towards the only sign of humanity we'd seen in days. Fuel reserves be damned. Castro, however, did not seem all that pleased. I thought he'd be the most excited by this news, given that he was under serious strain from our situation, but he was actually

quite muted. We told him that our new path led west and assented to this without any comment or complaint. But the rest of us were jubilant, thinking at the end of our ordeal was in sight, and we gave little thoughts of what we would actually find there. We mounted our machine and turned it west into the direction of this heavenly sign to a group of stranded and desperate men. We took a much quicker pace than we had in days, only loosely paying attention to our remaining fuel. Our tank surged across those hated desert sands, and even as the weather yet again took a turn for the worse, we felt unstoppable. The shamar we thought had died out, picked up with a vengeance, though, and once again we were nearly blinded by that curtain of sand and grit. We kept

that shining tower in our sight the whole way. As if rising to the challenge, the storm grew ever worse, and soon our visibility was nearly gone, but we still had our bearings. Through the thermal I observed the horizon for this tower, catching faint streaks of heat in the direction we were going, convinced that this was our destination. At this point, Hilaire once again began working on the radio, and after days of inactivity, that voice recording once again filled the speaker. It was muffled and filled with static, and no more intelligible. It was as stronger and clearer a signal than before. days before we'd wondered at the wisdom of trying to follow such a signal, but in our desperation we were prepared to accept many risks. Indeed, it seemed as if the source of this mysterious signal was coming from this tower

that we'd spotted in the distance, as the signal came in clearer and clearer as we kept going. I thought we must have been very close, when the violence of the storm suddenly became worse, and the pattering on the outside of the turret gave a sign of what we'd feared most. rain. We were in one of the driest places on earth, and we had somehow stumbled into a goddamn rainstorm. I suppose it was possible that Shemar could bring in scattered rain clouds that hung over the desert, but this seemed like an unfathomable stroke of bad luck. But still, we pushed on, hoping that our mad dash would bring us to our destination before the worst of it took hold.

Our desperate hopes proved fruitless as we came upon a distinctive sight of a torrent of water rolling. across the sand. A flash flood brought on by this rain. For a vehicle as large and heavy as a pattern tank, a flash flood might not seem that dangerous, but we were driving over soft, porous sand, and there was no telling just how deep this stream could be, or if the ground beneath would hold out. And Lear was unimpressed by this obstacle, and seeing we were so close to our goal, he made a snap decision to just forge your head through the flood, hoping that speed and weight would keep us upright. The air signal, Lorry gunned the throttle and drove forward into the mud and muck of the flash flood,

and the tank noticeably sank into the ground, but we still managed to keep moving forward. But this momentum was slowly fading, as we made to within a few meters of the other side, the tank started getting bogged down in the waterlog sand. Laurie kept at it, pushing the engine harder and harder, and the old Hellhound managed to slowly inch forward. After a few tense minutes that seemed like hours, we finally reached the other side, but it was still not over. The rear of the tank was still in the stream, and just as the rear made it up to the bank, we heard the dreaded con, clon, of a track being thrown. Despite lurching onto more solid ground at the last second, Lorry had still placed too much stress on it, and it had simply bunched up and rolled off. We all got out to examine the damage.

where our once high spirits now crushed and thought it would take hours of work to get the track back in place hours spent out in this horrible storm even when we were so close to our destination Hiller wanted us to focus on getting the tank back in order but Castro and Laurie both floated the idea of simply pushing ahead on foot hoping that we were close enough to reach our destination without transport Hilaire aggressively vetoed this idea

saying that leaving our machine behind was not an option, especially since all of our weapons were still operational. Following his suggestion, we all gathered inside of a tank to begin the arduous task of getting the track back on the road wheels. All this time the storm had kept up its constant assault, and even face-wrapping and goggles could only do so much against the high-speed barrage of sand. Thankfully the rain had ceased, and the threat of any more flash floods was gone,

although the stream of water we'd just crossed continued flowing for hours. We'd been working on the track for just over an hour, and making good progress, when Laurie pointed out that Castro yet again seemed like he was going to wander off from the rest of us. He was stalking off into the storm, rifle in hand, behaving very similarly to that trance-like state I'd found him in the day before. Shouting over the wind would do no good, so I ran after Castro to try and get his attention.

To my surprise and shock. Castro suddenly broke into a heaving sprint further into the blowing sands, and he lay a bellow from behind me to follow after him. I wasn't thrilled by this idea, as I was convinced that I would end up getting myself lost out in the storm, but I was also deeply worried about Castro. These increasingly strange behaviour these last few days had left us all quite disturbed,

especially since he'd been so cool and level-headed during the battle at the airport. I charged after him, barely keeping up. and struggling to even see through all the dust and grit in the air. For a few moments he disappeared from my sight completely, and I nearly panicked, thinking that both of us were now hopelessly lost out in this weather. I kept running in the direction I'd last seen him, silently praying that he would turn up while simultaneously cursing him for running off like this. Without warning, I suddenly moved into a break in the storm.

My vision suddenly clear, and I saw Castro at a dead stop, about 30 yards in front of me, staring up in awe at something in the sky. It was then that I saw just what we've been traveling towards all this time, looming high above us, silhouated against a sky still filled with storm and moving sands, were a pair of dark stone objects that I recognized as buildings. The bases of these buildings seem totally buried in the sand, but the rest of them stuck out above the ground at least five or six stories. tall. They were mostly square and featureless, the sides canted inward slightly like a trapezoid,

with no trace of windows or doors on the outside. The facade of each building was just a flat, barren stone exterior, not sand-coloured or beige like most structures I'd seen in this region, but dark grey and very smooth. Above us they loomed on the side of a particularly steep sand dune, like the ramparts of a great fortress, spaced only a few short waves. apart. Castro and I were equally dumbfounded by this unexpected discovery of such strange architecture in the middle of a barren, featureless desert. But, old as it was, it was still the first clear sign of civilization that we'd had in days, and these were clearly not natural features of the land. I finally broke out of my own astonishment and got Castro's attention. He was still awe-struck,

but not pleased or as excited as I felt. I urged him to follow me back to the tank to tell the rest that we'd finally arrived at the mysterious destination, that we'd been following the whole day. With some reluctance, he agreed to follow me back to the others. We must have wandered off close to a quarter mile into the storm, and I had no clue how we might find the rest going back through it. Castro suddenly took the lead and began moving briskly back in the rough direction we'd come. Since I had no better ideas, I followed him closely through the storm. hoping that his sudden confidence meant he knew where he was going. To my relief, we shortly caught sight of our tank

and saw Hillare waving his arms over his head, signaling to us his position. He must have been incredibly relieved to see us back. I excitedly told Hiller and Laurie what we had found ahead, and they were just as perplexed by what we told them as we'd been when we found it. The work on the track was nearly done, outstripping our expectations, and I tried again to urge Hiller to just push a head on foot back to the structures. Again, he rejected this idea, but with Castro and I back, we could more quickly finish repairing the track.

With great speed and excitement, we got back to fixing the track, and in less than an hour our tank was operational again. We remounted and proceeded in the direction we'd gone earlier, still carefully rationing our last sips of fuel to cover the short distance. Once again we made it through that sudden break in the storm and again beheld the awe-inspiring sight of those looming towns. We knew we lightly couldn't get the tank up that steep hill, so we circled around the base of it.

Our eyes fixed upwards to survey the perimeter of this bizarre settlement that we'd found so far out into the desert. As we drove around, we saw that there were other structures around the top of the hill extremely similar to the first two, spaced evenly apart. between two of them we finally found a relatively manageable slope leading up to the crest of the hill and cautiously we moved up this path alert for whatever we may find in this strange and remote place we reached the top of the slope and moved down slowly between the two structures nervously eyeing the upper reaches for any possible sign of trouble we passed between the towers

and came into a flat empty area surrounded on all sides by these strange buildings an area that seemed strangely like a plaza of some sort. And in the centre of this plaza was the glittering tower we spotted in the distance hours before. It was an enormous steel-grey obelisk that must have been a hundred metres tall or more, built out of smooth and polished stone that still shone slightly in the dim sky.

Despite these obvious signs of civilization, there was no trace of human life any place around the whole area. This whole unexpected, it seemed left us dumbstruck for many minutes until Lorry suggested we dismount and explore the area, in hopes of finding any locals we might ask for information. We were reticent about this at first, given the unnatural solitude of this strange and isolated city. Apart from these blank and ominous buildings, the whole area was still as barren as much of the rest of the desert that we just left. We moved slowly and cautiously deeper into the plaza area, now completely unnerved,

by the silence. Though the sky was still hazy and mostly obscured by the sandstorm, the wind on the ground level was quite calm. We finally parted our tank in the shadow of the obelisk, and we all sat quietly for a few minutes, internally debating our next course of action. The excitement of the hours before, when we thought our predicament had come to an end, was all but gone. No sign of life was remotely present here, or we seemed to have followed, were some ancient and long-abandoned ruins far away from anywhere. After a few quiet minutes, Hillair ordered us all to dismount and survey the perimeter for any signs of life. With reluctance, we all climbed out and had a good look at our surroundings.

The buildings, particularly that obelisk, were even more impressive and ominous up close and personal. We explored all around the base of the obelisk, and on the other side from where we part, we saw yet another strange structure that escaped our notice before. It was a large ziggurat, mostly covered by sand, it had in a low depression in the ground, like something sitting in the base of a bone. But this wasn't like any normal ziggurat I'd learned about in my sixth grade history class. This one had rounded edges on each successive tier, and each tier was not flat but slightly inclined upwards.

Unlike the other structures, this ziggurat was fairly squat and wide. They're still very tall compared to the others, and the stones that made up the outside were a dark, rusty red colour, almost like brick, but completely smooth and without scenes. But its base was an arched opening with a high peak, blending seamlessly into the smooth exterior. Being in a depression in the ground, the top of the ziggurat was still lower than the other buildings, but up close we could see that it was at least as tall as all the others, entranced as we were by this unusual scene. We still couldn't deny that we were in a similarly dismal situation as before. We were still stranded far out into the desert, and now we had too little fuel left to go anywhere else,

and the hopeful signs of human habitation had turned out to be totally lifeless and abandoned. The best we could claim is that we now had a recognisable landmark, but without fuel or other transportation, navigating according to this landmark, would have been useless. The buildings might provide better shelter from the sandstorms, so we could still hope to wait out the shemarle and try signaling to passing aircraft. This, of course, was assuming that aircraft were momentarily grounded by the storm. We still had plenty of MREs and fresh water,

as well as a mostly stock survival pack with medical supplies and tents, so if needed we could last in this spot for a week or more. But none of us were excited about that. But there was no alternative. We'd used much of what remained of our fuel getting here, and driving back out into the desert would have been worse than useless. However, being at a distinct landmark in a featureless desert could make it easy to find us from the air,

so for the time being, that was the obvious choice. For the rest of the day we explored the whole site, examining the buildings for any clue of recent human activity. Many of the buildings on the perimeter were still inaccessible, their entrances presumably buried beneath the sand, and only three had usable openings. The insides of these structures were strange and fascinating, but disappointing as far as survival was concerned. Like the exteriors, their interiors were largely barren, consisting of a single cavernous chamber

whose ceiling was many metres above our heads. Strangely, the insides were reasonably well lit, even though there were no windows or obvious sources of illumination. Looking up, we saw that there was a shallow dome protruding from the ceiling that seemed to be composed of a highly polished metal that appeared to be brass or even gold. The dome was highly reflective, and though its surface was totally opaque, there seemed to be a mesmerizing amber glow that seemed to reflect from within it. This feature was repeated in identical fashion in the other outer buildings we accessed, and it struck us that such a building didn't seem like it was meant for humans to dwell in.

What could this building even before? It had no furnishings like tables or places to Six. Higher up there were ledges that stuck out from the wall, but with no clear place to climb up to reach them. These bizarre identical buildings seemed to have no obvious function, and in fact didn't even seem like they were meant for human beings at all. We explored the Ziggurat last, thinking that this might be the obvious place for us to shack up during our time here. The entrance to the Ziggurat was quite dark and seemed to shrink a bit as we moved inwards. It led into a similar open chamber as the last buildings, but this one was almost in the shape of a globe, with the walls and ceiling being a cavernous dome, and the floor being a bowl-shaped depression, similar to the one

Ziggurat rested in. In the centre was a trapezoidal mound, with rounded edges, perhaps six feet tall and similar dimensions wide and long. Like the others, the chamber was illuminated by some unseen sorts, but with a soft greenish-blue light instead. The ground in the depression was especially bright, as if cast in the harsh glow of a spotlight, but from no visible saw. The surface inside the dome was noticeably less smooth, but on closer examination, we could see that it was because it was absolutely covered in strange drawings and hieroglyphics etched into the stone. These markings were so bizarre that we could hardly decipher their meaning. Some of the drawings were more legible.

The drawings clearly showed crude human shapes, but not much of the drawings. more than stick figures. They were clearly meant to represent humans, though. The drawings showed many vaguely recognizable scenes. Like people gathering around, what I assume was a campfire, and another appeared to show a battle of some sort. But this battle scene was where things got strange. On one side was what were clearly human shapes, gathered with spears and other weapons. But the other side was composed of something that didn't even resemble a human being. It appeared to have to have to be. two arms, but instead of legs it had a cluster of flat, wide appendages that were splayed out almost like knives. Altogether these strange legs formed a wide fan,

like a bird spreading its wings. The head was also oddly shaped, with a pear-shaped base and a wide crescent perched on top. From this head were etched lines pointing towards the humans on the other side, like some kind of ray or emanation. Further down was another drawing with human figures arranged in a sequence. The sequence started with a typical drawing of a human figure. A further drawing showed human figures with increasingly long limbs, while at the same time they adopted a more hunched gait, more like a griller or a chimpanzee than a man.

Above the sequence was a figure of the non-human creature from the previous battle drawing, hovering above the sequence as if it were observing it. What was most odd about this sequence is that it appeared to go right to left, with a normal man at the logical beginning of the sequence, and the long-limb creatures further down towards the end of the sequence. But these disturbing drawings weren't our main focus for now. When we finished our explorations,

it was nearing darkness and about time for us to set up camp. The storm outside, which had previously been so calm around this strange city, was now increasing in faults. But strangely, the wind didn't feel like it carried the familiar abrasive sand. Now it appeared more like a very fine dust, almost like smoke, with only a few grains of sand mixed in. Laurie mounted the tank and drove it around to the front above the ziggurat so that we could clearly see it from the entrance.

In another situation, it would have been more appropriate to camp near our tank, but with such crappy weather and a spacious shelter so close at hand, we decided to make our camp inside the ziggurat. To avoid the brightness inside, we camped in the middle of the entrance tunnel, sheltered from the wind but with a clear line of sight up to the tank. Our guard was relatively low as we bedded down for the night, but we all kept our rifles and sidearms with us at our sights. Since there was no sign of human life in the area,

and because we were so isolated, we didn't really expect visitors. At the back of my mind, I clearly remembered the previous night when we'd come under attack from these creatures roaming through the sandstorm. We weren't really all that far away from where it had happened, and as darkness fell, I felt my heart sensed. sink, desperately fearing that those creatures might have followed us. I volunteered for first watch, not wanting to take any chances, and for two hours I sat on watch, ruminating on our situation. I thought mostly about those creatures. They descended upon us the previous night in the

middle of the storm, as if it didn't bother them. Clearly they had no trouble moving in the storm, and had even managed to follow us for a few days before their attack. But they couldn't just live out in the empty desert, could they? Didn't they need some kind of shelter as they roam the sand dunes? Maybe they burrowed into the ground or hid under rocks like scorpions. If burrowed, maybe there were whole underground colonies of them out there, lurking under every dune or canyon wall. Maybe they sought shelter in other places.

Maybe even a place like this. Hiller had the second watch, and I woke him after I'd finished mine. I almost didn't want to end my watch, trusting nobody else to hear what I heard or see what I saw. I could have let Hill-Air sleep and continued on my own sleepless vigil. He could certainly use the sleep after the last few days we'd had. But at the appointed time, I awoke him anyway, still nursing vague hopes of sleeping through any of this. Castro, who'd been on the edge for three days straight, was now sleeping like the dead. so if you could do it, I suppose we all could as well.

As I closed my eyes, I kept thinking about whether or not we really were alone out here. He later took up his post without complaint and reassured me that he would keep a sharp lookout. He must have known what I was thinking. But as I drifted off to sleep, I could swear I heard through my dreamless haze that distinctive high-pitch howling in the far distance. Echoing slightly through the entrance of the Ziggura. I woke up to find my blanket covered in dirt from the storm the previous night. Lowry and Hillare were discussing doing any more exploration around the perimeter, hoping that our elevated position would give us a better view of landmarks in the distance.

A stiff breeze was still blowing, but it didn't carry much dirt or dust, so I was hopeful that the hellish shemar was finally calming down. Castro sat against the outside wall of the ziggurat, staring blankly off into the distance. Once again we set ourselves to exploring the outer limits of the ruins, looking for any other areas that might be accessed. We would spend most of this day examining the horizon from the edge of the hill, hoping for a sign of a landmark, all the while keeping an eye on the sky for any passing aircraft. Still, nothing. That didn't make any sense to any of us.

We knew the war was pretty much over, but there still should have been aircraft overhead. Even worse, the weather was now quite clear. Coalition planes shouldn't have been grounded, unless the coalition had completely stopped their air operations. I couldn't think of any reason why we were so isolated out here. We convened back at the Ziggurat to discuss our options, so thoroughly discouraged by our lack of success that we were all starting to doubt we would ever get out of this place.

Temperes began to flare as we argued about our next move. Larry was now openly pessimistic about our chances. Hillair was doing his best to convince us to stay together and stick with the plan. Castro didn't say much at all. He abruptly left the argument and began tentatively exploring around the mound at the base of the Ziggurat chamber. We hardly paid him any mind while we argued. But then a resounding thud echoed throughout the chamber, followed by an ear-piercing hiss,

an enormous gust of air from the middle of the chamber. As we turned we were able to see that the mound in the centre had collapsed into the ground through a large sinkhole, and we saw Castro falling after it. We forgot our grievances with one another and sprinted to the edge of the sinkhole to see what had happened to Castro. Leaning over the edge, he caught out his name at the top of our lungs, hoping he'd survived the fall. That sinkhole was astonishingly deep, so far that we couldn't even see to the bottom of it, even with the light in the chamber. after several minutes calling his name down the sinkhole we finally heard his voice faintly echoing up the abyss we called to him to see if he was injured but we could hardly make out his voice

he had fallen so deep from what i could make out of his faint words he said he was unable to get up we couldn't see him from where we stood and the light we shone down the hole couldn't penetrate the thick dust that still hung in the air Hillair went back to the tank and quickly returned with a length of rope, intending to try and repel down the sinkhole to retrieve Kastro. The hole was so deep that Lorry and I didn't have high hopes for retrieving him, but we knew that we would certainly try. Larry and I both secured the rope,

and Hilaire began his descent down the sinkhole, shining his light down into the abyss. He tried to descend rapidly, but the dust and loose dirt at the edge of the hole made it difficult for him to get a decent hole. and foot-hombed. He went ever deeper into the hole, getting so far down that we could hardly see him, and we were starting to run out of rope. All the while Hillair was calling down to Castro, trying to reassure him that we'd get him out of there. But Castro's responses became increasingly faint and inaudible, and finally ceased completely. When we ran out of rope to safely lower

Hilaire any further, we called down to urge him to come back up. After a few minutes he resurfaced, utterly defeated and on the verge of tears. It seemed that Castro was all but lost down that god-forsaken sinkhole, and it seemed like we had no real chance to get down there and find him. Moral was poor before, but losing Castro like this was absolutely devastating. He was the youngest man in our crew, just shy of his 20th birthday, yet dependable and steadfast as a man twice his age. Despite his odd behaviour in the last few days, we still owed a lot to him.

He led us here to this place, and even though we were still lost, was better than taking our chances in the desert. In those early days, when we were bogged down in the sand dunes, he took the personal risk of scouting a way out of that. Losing him like this, in this strange and ominous place, was something that hammered home more than anything the hopelessness of our situation. Even so, Ilya still talked about men. making another rescue attempt down the hole, even though Castro's voice was gone and we didn't have

nearly enough rope to make it down. When Laurie and I suggested that Castro could be gone for good, Heller flew into a rage and cursed us out for just abandoning him like this, saying that we shouldn't even be thinking about leaving a man behind, alive or dead. We didn't say anything in response. Between our fatalistic helplessness and Heller's guilt about the whole situation, hope seemed like a vulgar proposition. Lear sat by the hole for the rest of the day, occasionally calling out Castro's name down the hole with no response. Lowry and I camped outside of the entrance,

ostensibly to keep watch, but mostly to commiserate where Heller couldn't hear us. Both of us were convinced that we would probably die out here. Either we'd run out of food and water, or be the victim of an accident like Castro, or we'd try our luck in the desert and die of thirst and heat stroke. Darkness came again, and Hillare was still inside the Zygirat, shouting down the sinkhole until his voice went hoarse.

Lowry and I regretted telling Hiller just to give up, even though we still believed it was hopeless. No aircraft had ever shown up. No sign of a search operation looking for us. We were the only human faces that any of us had seen in days. there's something really strange about being stranded in a place so lifeless and empty I guess we're not really used to the idea of being so alone so far from city lights and crowded avenues the general hustle and bustle of human life

on this place these ancient ruins all of it should have reassured us with a reminder that once upon a time human beings had set foot in this place instead it seemed like there was nothing really human about this place at all We prepared to spend another night in the ziggurats, and Hillare finally gave up his desperate mission. This time he volunteered for the first watch. Lowry and I were nervous about being around him, because of his desperate and clearly agitated frame of mind. We didn't really think he would hurt us, but his abrasive outbursts were starting to get more personal and hostile,

and being around him like this was an extremely unpleasant experience. nonetheless we suppose that he really could use some alone time to work through his issues being around us probably wasn't easy for him either the way lorry and i were moping around and being generally hopeless i was asleep when hilaire charged in through the entrance shouting in pain and panic rousing lorry and i from our leaden sleep as we came to our senses i noticed that the air outside was utterly clouded by a resurgent sandstorm and through it i heard distinctively that i high-pitched howl that we all knew so well. And there was limping as he's printed inside. I saw that his right leg was slick with blood and a large gouge was ripped in his pant leg. He shouted, They're back! They're back!

As he charged in, more terrified than I'd ever seen him. In less than a second we gathered our weapons and trained them on the entrance. Nerves alight and convinced that this will be our last snare. The howls grew louder with each passing second. and more of those horrific, sibilant voices joined in with the chorus of screams and howls. For several seconds we focused on the wall of airborne sand blowing across the entrance, knowing at any second that something could come storming in with great numbers. When the shadow became visible through the storm,

one of us must have panicked and opened fire through the entrance, the report of gunfire nearly deafening us in the confined space. All of us joined in, firing rapidly at air, every shadow and vague silhouette visible through the darkness, without regard to conserving our ammunition. Then my rifle went dry, I didn't pause for a second to reload, instead drawing my sidearm and keeping up the fire until I emptied that as well. We'd taken the ammunition for our individual weapons with us when we made camp inside the ziggurats, but anything more powerful than small arms was still on the tank. Outside the storm and probably surrounded by those creatures, as our magazines went

empty. We stopped for a moment, examining the entrance. Nothing had, apparently, come through. We couldn't see if all our fire had actually hit anything. Something was obviously out there. We turned our attention to Hiller's leg wound, a size of a gash running down his right leg that must have been nearly a foot long. It was clearer evidence than anything that whatever had followed us here was now clearly hostile and meant to do much worse to all of us. We were now unexpectedly thrown back into a fight for our lives, and if Hilaire was right, and the outside of the ziggurat was just about crawling with those creatures, and they were almost certainly prepared to descend upon us once they had gotten their second wind.

Holding out inside the tunnel might have some advantages. We could funnel the hostiles into a narrow path and create a virtual shooting garrity out of whatever came through, but we could only do this with our small arms. What will we do once we ran dry? Could we possibly hope to kill or drive off a hostile force of that size only using what we had? If they remained committed to the attack after we'd fired our last rounds, the only hope of defence would be to physically block the entrance, without any nearby loose debris or entrenching tools, we couldn't make that happen.

But our tanks seemed the best bet for defence. The coaxial and Coppola gun machines had thousands of rounds, rounds of ammunition left. And if that failed to drive them off, then we could just batten down our hatches and wait out the hostile. But getting back out to our tank, we mean having to go outside and dash over 150 metres up the edge of the bowl, all through both the storm and the creatures outside waiting to ambush us. As we saw it, there was no alternative. As long as we stayed inside, we were confined in a kill zone from which there would be no retreat. We hastily reloaded our weapons, planning to make a dash for the tank, firing from the hip in the hopes that we

could suppress our enemies long enough to make it. I lear stuffed a rag into the wound on his leg, and I worried about whether or not we'd be able to make it the distance to the tank, but he had as little choice in the matter as any of us. We braced ourselves for a few seconds, preparing for our mad dash, convinced that we would all be dead within the next few minutes. Illair, like a true leader, was the first out of the entrance, and we followed close behind, expected to be set upon the second we left the opening. We were relieved not to have anything jump on our backs as we plunged into the storm, but that relief was short-lived as we saw dozens of silhouettes coming through the sand on both sides.

We fired wildly from the hip, sprang fire at the level of these grotesque, vaguely human shadows, This bold manoeuvre certainly did catch these things off guard, backing off for a few seconds, but others ducked and weaved and carried on their attack. Lowry, immediately behind me, the whole way, stumbled to the ground as I saw one of those things tackle him from behind, swiping and scrabbling at the back of his head. I turned back, and rather than risk shooting Lowry, I charged in like an old-time Napoleonic soldier, rifle tucked at my hip and reaching the creature

I swung out my weapon like a club and bashed it across its face with the butt of my rifle. I helped Lowry to his feet and got him moving again as he clasped the back of his head with both hands. The dash to the tank

must have taken a minute at the most but it seemed like at least an hour a frantic hour firing wildly at shadows in the mist but against all odds he'd actually made it back to our machine and I have to say the dusty hour

outline of the Hellhounds seemed like a divine gift from above. We remounted the tank like getting reacquainted with an old friend, but rather than close the hatches, he got on the 50-Cal machine gun on the Coppola, and without hesitation swung around in the direction of our assailants. He bellowed a vicious war-cry that seemed to come from the bowels of hell itself, and without pause opened up on the outlines coming through the storm. Lowry and I crouched at the bottom of the turret, while I inspected his wounds. He had indeed sustained numerous cuts on the back of his scalp. No, this didn't look too deep. They still bled like mad bastards as scalp wounds often do. I wrapped his face rag around the

back of his head like a turban, hoping to staunch the flow of blood. That was the best I could do for the time being until we got our medical supplies. I used the commander's override to switch on our auxiliary engine and restore power to the tank. And even though we were dangerously low on fuel, I knew it could keep us going for a little while longer at least. I tapped the back of Hiller's leg and let him know that I was about to reverse the turret, and he shouted back in acknowledgement. I shifted the turret in the direction of our attackers,

turned on the thermal, and flipped I over to the coaxial machine gun. Oh good God! I must have seen hundreds of thermal signatures through the dust. Pausing was not an option. I immediately let it rip with a coax into the line of thermal spots, firing long bursts in a general sweeping motion aimed at ground level. The first time, I could see with my own eyes that we were doing serious damage to our attackers,

mowing them down in absolute droves between the sharp chatter of the coax machine gun and the steady hammering of the 50-calf. But these little bastards learn quick. Soon they were skittering across the ground, ducking and weaving and even leaping several feet in the air to avoid the incoming fire. Worse still, I could see in the peripheral that new thermal signatures were coming from further to the sides in both directions. There's no way I could move the turret fast enough to get them all. I shouted to Hiller that they were trying to split our fire, and he should aim right as I move the turret left.

But there were just too many of them, moving too quickly in all directions. No sooner did I set myself. sights on the attackers from the left that Hilaire screamed that they were about to climb onto the tank. I heard then the pounding and scratching the turret walls as the creature scrambled up the sides, and Hilaire screamed something and tried to draw his side arm. One of those things tackled him and tried to grapple with him. For the first time, I got a close look at exactly what these creatures were. It was a pale and hairless thing, humanoid in shape, but with no nose, and along, sloping more with no lips and glossy black orbs for eyes.

I was stunned by this sight for a second, and I tried to pull Hiller down into the turret. Several more scrambled up the tank, piling on top of him, scrabbling and clawing at his whole upper body as he screamed with panic and rage. Lowry threw himself around Hiller's legs, and we pulled as hard as we could to get him back into the tunnel.

With a sudden and violent jerk, Larry and I were yanked upwards with Hillare, bashing our heads into the turret ceiling. In a flash, we felt Hiller's legs slipped through our grip and out of the turret hatch. It was stunned and horrified for a few seconds, as we struggled to comprehend what had just happened. Hiller was gone, torn out of the turret by the creatures that had overwhelmed our position. For a few moments, we stared dumbly at the open hatch, listening for a scream or any sign Hillare was still out there alive. I thought I could make out his shout through the roaring storm,

but they quickly faded into the din of howls and gales of sand. Lowry had the presence of mine to finally close the hatch. A move that, in that instant, probably saved our lives as well, as the hatch wasn't closed for a second before violence scratching and pounding and resonated through it. We both slunk to the bottom of the turret floor, staring at the hatch and hoping that it was secure enough to keep out a determined, group of those creatures.

And they were determined. We must have sat there for hours, riveted on the hatch, jumping at every violent assault on the turret hull. Good. There must have been hundreds of them out there. Not the least bit dissuaded by the heavy losses they'd taken trying to overwhel us. We lay on the turret floor, horrified and completely despondent about our predicament. We were now down to half of our number.

Losing Castro had been bad. The worst moment so far, but losing Hilaire was a virtually irrecoverable blow. Without leadership, trapped in a metal box, without choices being to stay here and starve, or risk getting torn to pieces. We believed we now had a clear picture of exactly how we would end up dying. When it finally struck us that Hilaire was lost, I couldn't take it anymore.

I broke down in tears, both in despair and disbelief. I never suspected that such a situation like this was even possible on earth. I had expectations of dying as an old man, surrounded by my children and grandchildren, or of dying a noble death in combat with a foreign enemy. Getting trapped in the middle of the desert and getting torn to bits by hideous unknown creatures didn't even seem possible. But no matter how much I blinked and rubbed my eyes, there was no waking up from this nightmare.

There are no worse to describe what it's like to stare your image. death in the face. Even in the worst scenarios, there would seem to be some optimism, some skepticism about death that could carry you through the worst of the fear. That battle at the airport those days before was like that, rolling forward against enemy fire, wary that a lurking enemy tank or RPG could suddenly light you up and end your war without warning. That was a real fear, but you also knew that it might not happen as well, that you'd be lucky or good enough to get out of combat with all your parts intact. But knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the jig was up, in a way more horrible and seemingly

impossible than you ever thought possible, took the last reserves of my courage right out of me. Larry wasn't doing much better himself. He'd never broken into tears, but he was definitely showing the same hopelessness that had crushed me. Without options, we just curled up on the turret floor, resigned to waiting hours or days or whatever. for what might come somewhere in there i fell into a dreamless sleep that must have lasted several hours no nightmares when you're truly exhausted miserable and emotionally drained there are no dreams or nightmares the only nightmare is waking up again when i did awaken i looked at my watch and saw it was 0 5 30 hours lorry was still awake staring back up at the hatch he turned to

He turned his attention to me and pointed out that the outside was completely silent. No pounding or scratching. This got my attention. And our attackers given up. Were they waiting for another opportunity? Or did they have some other plan for leaving us? Larry proposed that maybe we should take a brief look outside, even consider making a run for it.

That didn't make much sense to me, because they didn't seem like there was any place to run. However, having a quick look around for an idea of what to do next wasn't a terrible idea. I looked through the thermal sight and saw nothing. Lowry used the commander's Coppola to examine in all directions around the tank, and again, no sign of anything. He picked up his rifle and cautiously opened the hatch while I held my breath, waiting for something to storm in as soon as it was open. But there was nothing. Silence. Unusual silence, in fact.

Even the storm had finally calmed down, and although dust still hung in the air and clouded the sky, there wasn't even a slight breeze. For several minutes, Larry scanned all around, not sticking his head out above eye level. He noticed that the 50-Cal machine gun had been torn out of its mount and laid on the ground next to the track. Larry said he was going out,

even though I protested harshly, He pulled himself up and out of the hatch. After a few minutes with no screams of alarm, I tentatively followed him up. Indeed, the whole scene was eerily still and silent. No trace of our attackers remained, not even the corpses of all those we'd slain the night before. They had, evidently, taken their dead with them and done God knows what with them. More disturbingly, there was no sign of him. Hilaire either. When he was snatched from that turret, he had simply disappeared off the face of the

earth. But at this point, I had no real hopes of finding him. I only surmised that what must have happened to him at the hands of those creatures, well, if their violent attacks were any indication, I'd be surprised if anything was left. Larry pointed down at the entrance of the Zygorat that we'd abandoned the previous night. He suggested we should try and make a way. back there, maybe for any trace of our former commander, or to reclaim any supplies we'd abandon our camp in the entrance. I thought now he was starting to take some excessive risks, but the silence and stillness of our surroundings swayed me. Daylight was starting to calm on more strongly, and nothing was visible in the distance. I think he was mostly interested in the

first aid kits we'd left behind. Although the bleeding from his head wounds had stopped, he must have wanted to find something more than a dusty rag to bind these wounds. With some reluctance, I got fully out of the tank and followed him to the edge of the bowl. With some reluctance, I got fully out of the tank and followed him to the edge of the bowl. With some hesitation, we proceeded down the bowl to the ziggurat with a slow and particularly cautious pace. But something about the ground beneath our feet didn't feel quite right. Until now, it was mostly soft and porous sand, but now it seemed more firm, like it had settled and was squirming under our feet. It was suddenly overcome by a chorus of hellish shrieks, and I saw just what made the ground

feel so strange. Dozens of the creatures borrowed out from the sand and leaped straight up from the ground on all sides of us. These fucking things had actually ambushed us. They deliberately waited us out, hoping we'd leave our armoured refuge, so they could take us out in the open from right beneath our feet. Larry and I just panicked, letting loose our rifles on the creatures as they sailed through the air above us. To our dismay, the sounds of gunfire no longer seemed to dissuade our enemy, but they did duck and weave just enough to slow them down. We sprinted down the bolt of the entrance with our backs to the enemy, hoping beyond hope that we wouldn't get taken down before we made it inside. One creature did manage to reach me,

tackling me with surprising strength for their emaciated frames. I nearly stumbled all the way to the ground. Like a miracle, I managed to get my feet back under me before heading the ground, and I kept going, practically breathless when I finally crossed the threshold of the Zygorat entrance. The creatures balked at first, as if they objected to entering this place, but as long as Lowry and I made it into the chamber, I could hear them making their way down the entrance corridor after us. We had run straight into a trap, an open chamber with no real exit, and I figured now that this is how I would die. But Lowry wasn't finished yet. He ran over to the edge of the sinkhole that had swallowed Castro earlier, staring into it resolutely. It was actually suggesting

that we go down into that endless abyss, with no knowledge just where the hell it even led. I was ready to refuse this out of hand, and the hoots and shrieks of the creatures near the entrance made me think better. I had resigned myself to a grisly fate at their hands, but thinking about it, plunging to my death down the hole, didn't seem much worse. Lorry grabbed the rope we'd left there earlier and spiked it into the ground with an entrenching tool. Without hesitation, he took the rope and began his descent into the hole. I watched incredulously after him as he swiftly descended without breaking. When he disappeared from my sight, I tried to yell after him,

but the noise of those creatures made it impossible for me to hear any response. I saw them finally enter the main chamber, crawling all over the ground and walls at the threshold. Without much choice, I took my own place on the rope and slid down. I took it more slowly than Lowry, and as I descended below the edge of the hole, the shrieks and owls turned into something else. It became that hideous, rasping laugh I'd heard so many days earlier, as if they were amused by my attempt to escape. When I made it far below the rim, I looked up and saw those horribly familiar faces looking over the edge, giving off that disgusting laugh all the while. I focused my attention downwards on the depths of the room.

pit. Down this far the dust had become thick enough that I couldn't see more than two yards below me, but going anywhere but down was not an option. I slowed my pace and descended until I reached the end of the rope, with the bottom still nowhere in sight. I wonder just how I would go from here, but Lowry had evidently made it down, so there must have been some way. The dirt surrounding the pit was quite loose, but it was heavily sodden and probably could make a good hand. hole. I made the decision then to try and free climb down the rest of the way. Well, this proved quite challenging and slow, but the dirt managed to hold so long as I plunged my hand as deep into it as possible. I must have gone down another 20 feet this way, when the dirt

became less stable. As I swung forward to dig my boot into the side of the hole, I lost my grip without warning and tumbled down into the abyss. I slid down against the edge of the pit. desperately clawing at it in the hopes of catching a new hold, but it was for nothing. I fell a good thirty feet before suddenly hitting the bottom and collapsing flat on my back. I felt that the bottom was soft and porous sand, having slowed myself down against the side of the pit, I had managed to save myself from fall into my death. Castro had fallen down this way as well. I was suddenly struck by the hope that he might have survived his fall into the pit relatively unharmed. Despite this hope,

I saw no trace of anywhere he might have ended up. I remembered he'd fallen all the way down the pit, closely followed by the collapsing debris from the mound, which dashed my hopes of his survival. If he had made it all the way down, he would have hit the bottom much harder, and maybe been crushed by the rest. At the bottom of this pit was a tunnel entrance,

a small tunnel that seemed hastily excavated from the dirt like a mine shaft, rather than carved or sculpted. I called Lowry's name down the tunnel, and to my relief, heard his distant response. I worked my way through the cramped tunnel, which must have extended over a hundred yards at least, and I came out of the tunnel to another bizarre and awe-inspiring sight. Lowry was just outside the end of the tunnel, staring at the same thing. We found ourselves in another enormous chamber, at least as large as that at the top of the hole. most of it was quite dim

but in the centre was a considerably bright light almost like direct sunlight illuminating the centre of the chamber in the centre of the chamber shrouded in blinding reflections was a glossy black pyramid with a sort of obelisk on top the structure was entirely coloured black

and was polished to a smoothness and sheen like obsidian the light surrounding the pyramid ended at a stark boundary with the darkness of the rest of the chamber like a line in the sand, and at the pyramid's base was a round stone altar. The altar was the familiar red colour of the ziggurat above,

but the surface of it was as smooth and polished as the pyramid, and glinted like a precious metal that I assumed was platinum. We were riveted by this site for many minutes, completely dumbfounded that such a thing was lying here under our feet, something even more alien and ornate than anything we'd seen above. I started to approach it. slowly, this time more confident than Lowry. I felt an insatiable desire to approach and even touch the pyramid, struck by its brilliant

sheen. It didn't even seem like it was made of solid material, but rather a glossy, static liquid. Lowry followed me to within a few yards of the light boundary on the floor of the chamber, but stopped and began to urge me back. I slowed my pace, but I still wanted to get a good look at it. The boundary of light was unusual, but not immediately disconcerting, and I didn't feel any fear of crossing it. Lowry implored me urgently to stay back, but he still followed me closer to the line. I stood less than a few feet away from the line when I stopped and became aware of a reverberating hum in my ears. It was a powerful noise, as if some titanic energy buzzed around the chamber. But this noise gave me a very good.

pause. Lowry came to my side, telling me that we should keep our distance from the light. I finally agreed with him, but my eyes were still fixed on the gleaming pyramid. I struggled to take a step back from it. Further back, Lowry had stopped dead in his tracks, looking around as if hearing something unusual. I still only heard the hum, but he began whipping his head around, as if barraged by noises from all around him. He asked me if I heard. He asked me if I heard. He was what he was hearing. I asked if it was a hum, but he said the sound was more like voices. I listened closely as well, into my shock and utter horror. I heard that distinctive, deep, static-filled voice repeating unintelligible words. It was the voice we'd heard on the radio days

before. Now it was becoming louder and more insistent, and the fear it gave me broke my trance and got me moving farther from the pyramid. Lowry was still low. listening, now frantically searching about for the source of the voice. His eyes were transfixed on the pyramid, and in a low and determined voice, he said, there, and pointed at the obelisk on the top. He started inexorably striding forward towards the light boundary he'd urged me away from moments ago, and now it was my turn to fear for his life. I came up behind Lowry and grabbed him by the shoulders, trying to direct him away from the pyramid, but he suddenly showed. shook me off with startling violence, even elbowing me in the ribs. He slipped from my grasp and

began walking to the boundary with great determination. Again, I came up for behind and grabbed him a few short feet from the edge, and he began to struggle even more aggressively. I tried to bear-hug him and drag him away, but he threw his head back and struck me on the nose. I instinctively let go to cradle my nose, and he charged across the boundary of light as I screamed his name. You got a few feet beyond the line, and quickly slowed to a storm. He began writhing on his feet, as if something was burning him. And to my horror, I saw heat vapour rising off his skin. His cries became audible, and his pain groans quickly rose to agonizing shrieks.

His body started jerking incontinently as his shrieks rose. He sunk to the ground, almost to his knees, but he was suddenly thrown up into the air by some unseen fall. tumbling end over end. Then, to my shock, his body hung in the air for a few seconds, still screaming, and he began to roll and twist in the air. His whole body was twisting violently,

and I saw that this unseen force was twisting, bending and breaking his body's section by section. The rolling motion rose to a tremendous speed, and with one last powerful and blood-curdling shriek, lowry was completely torn apart in the air. his shredded remains being catapulted into the far reaches of the chamber. He was shot beyond words at this sight, and I couldn't even move from that spot for several minutes. I'd seen Castro fall to his demise into a sinkhole. I'd seen Hiller dragged away by those creatures,

but the sight of Lorry being torn limb from limb by an invisible force was beyond reckoning. Castro and Hiller's deaths at least seemed physically possible, But I didn't know of any force on this planet capable of doing such things, or for several moments I wondered if I'd just hallucinated it. As I came round, I knew for sure what I'd seen had actually happened. Nothing remained of Lowry, not even shreds of uniform or spots of blood in the dirt below. I backed away from the edge of the light and curled up on the floor of the chamber.

I was now alone. alone in this horrible place that by right shouldn't even exist. I'm a lifelong sceptic, and I shouldn't know that places like this weren't possible anywhere on earth, but I also knew what I saw. I know that Gilbert Castro, Paul Hiller and Tim Lorry never came back from this place, and nothing was ever found to prove what had happened to them.

But even if this whole dark time was just some revolting fever dream, those basic facts remain and the images will never go away I stayed curled up on the ground for what must have been hours every death of one of my comrades had driven me deeper and deeper into despair and even when I thought it wouldn't get worse it did I can say with complete confidence

that those hours were the worst of my life we escaped thirst and starvation in the desert only to find ourselves set upon by creatures that probably no living humour had ever seen before. We escaped them only to find ourselves faced with being trapped at the bottom of a pit, only to be set on by physical forces that nobody has ever described. I was utterly defeated. Despite my previous despondence, I had managed to keep some semblance of reason and sanity, but at that time I was finally starting to crack up and lose it. I got to my feet and paced around the chamber, cursing the

the universe for making such things possible, especially here on earth. I no longer think of my own death, but what would become of this place after I was gone? I was furious that this place had gotten the best of us, had devoured three human lives so swiftly, and without any regard or remorse. The idea entered my head that this place might somehow be alive, as if this desity in an inanimate part of the desert was consciously evil and uncaring. It might seem ridiculous to think such things, but my own safe perception of reality was so shattered that anything seemed possible. I reached the peak of my despair down in that pit, in the dismal shadow of the pyramid, when I lost all reason and picked up my rifle. The thought of suicide had indeed crossed my mind at various points, but that wasn't what I intended now.

laughing maniacly, I loaded a fresh magazine, chambered around and leveled the barrel at the pyramid. That hateful object seemed like the source of all my despair. I cared nothing for any consequence of my actions. I fired round upon round at the side of the pyramid, rounds that mostly bounced off without effect. But one round did make a gouge in that finely polished exterior, and I was exultant at this petty sign of revenge realised. I broke out of my state when I noticed that the entire chamber seemed to tremble. Now I was suddenly regretful of my ill-considered actions, deeply afraid of what new event I had just triggered.

The trembling only got worse, and that damned hum I'd heard earlier came back with a vengeance, with a volume that was almost deafening. I dove to the ground on my stomach, covering the back of my head while still trying to see what was happening. Now debris was starting to fall from the ceiling under the persistent chain. and I saw that the light surrounding the pyramid was not only getting blindingly bright, but was starting to expand to cover an increasing area of the chamber. I scrambled away from the expanding boundary of the light, knowing full well what would happen if it overtook me.

I pressed myself against the wall towards the chamber entrance. Looking back, I could see that part of the tunnel had collapsed. Now I had no chance to retreat or seek cover. The boundary of light slowly expanded towards the edge of the chamber. chamber, and the pyramid was now trembling violently in place, and the obelisk at the top emitted a fierce beam of light up through the ceiling of the chamber. As the lion edged closer to me, I tried to brace myself for the horrific fate suffered by Lowry, but the line slowed and then stopped. The hum was now absolutely deafening, a hellish abyss of noise that felt like it would

cave in the sides of my skull. But without warning, the hum ceased, and the light but the light boundary suddenly contracted towards the pyramid, and the entire chamber became deathly silent. A rushing sound like the roar of waterfall suddenly rose, and several brilliant flashes of light emitted from the pyramid. I resisted the urge to watch what was happening and buried my face in the dirt. Then another piercing silence, and a continuing bright light that felt even hotter than standing in direct sunlight, and a swift roar and shockwave that lifted me off the ground and slammed me viciously into the dirt. The roar and shockwaves seemed to go on for hours, and in that brilliant spectacle, I lost myself completely. I thought I was dead, but somewhere in there I realised that if I

was dead, then I couldn't possibly be thinking anything, much less that. Going to my senses, I found myself partly buried in sand in the midst of an enormous crater surrounding me. Beyond the edge of the crater, I could see that the sky was visible. I, and somehow ended up above ground. That sky was clear, refreshingly clear, after so long spent in miserable dust storms and penetrating darkness. I was still quite weak, but I was able to shake myself out of my partly buried state and stand on my feet. Now I could see around the crater more clearly. Above the crater, where I assumed the dead city should have been,

was now a patchwork of hills formed from dirt and sand that looked freshly churned. No sign of the strange buildings, all the towering obelisk at the centre remained. I surveyed this whole scene in a complete days, unsure of what had just happened. The roar and the shockwaves felt like an explosion, and I did find myself at the bottom of a crater, so I assumed that was what had happened. I had no clue how I could have survived such a thing. At that moment I was struck by a feeling of victory. and exultation, the likes of which I never experienced again, not even on my wedding day nine years

later. Against all odds, I was somehow still alive when the rest of the city and all the disgusting creatures that inhabited it seemed to have been wiped from existence. I remember being overcome with a fit of deranged laughter of my unexpected victory. In this state, I wandered out of the crater and into the desert, being sure to head east as we'd done all those days before. I had no expectation of finding my way out of the desert, no plan to do much of anything. Being satisfied with somehow destroying that hated city was enough to carry my mind through anything. I just trudged east without ports, never thinking of where I was going, or if I was still faced to die out there in the desert.

There aren't many memories of this part of my journey. I know that I was walking through the rest of the day and much of the night, but I don't remember sleeping. All that I could remember was the walking east into the rising sun, hardly a care in the world. It's not that I forgot, or that I was totally nuts by that point, because at that time, I didn't think the journey was that important. After all, can anyone remember every inch of a daily commute they've done a thousand times or more? Again, against all possible odds, I was finally found and rescued at last. During my walk across the desert, I came a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a upon a road, maybe even the same road we'd left days before when we first got lost.

I was sitting at the edge of the pavement when a passing civilian spotted me and offered me a ride. Thinking about it later, I should have been more grateful to that man, willing to offer a ride to a stranded stranger, especially one in my deranged condition. The next stop we made was a town in Saudi Arabia called Afar al-Batine, where I was delivered into the care of a British expat who was able to contact US forces still operating in Kuwait. Seeing human life again was an overpowering experience, and I nearly broke down in tears again when I beheld a busy street scene. Within the day, I was back in the company of fellow Marines, and I was put on a chopper back to Al-Shara, where the rest of the battalion was

still posted. I don't know what kind of welcome I expected, but I certainly didn't get a warm one. The entire unit was well aware of our absence, and been on edge for over a week waiting for any news or sign of their missing comrades. When I came back home, they knew to assume the worst. But there wasn't any time for fond greetings with the others. Despite my poor condition, I was brought in for a full debriefing on the events of the last several days, and to shed light on what exactly had happened out there. If I were in a better frame of mind, I would have been offended by the accusatory tone of their questions. But after what I'd been through, those stuffy pricks didn't intimidate me in the slightest.

Without hesitation, I told them the exact story I'm telling you now, with greater brevity and minus certain details. To say they were utterly flabbergasted by this tale would be an understatement. I could tell they thought my recollection was a lot of bullshit, but I didn't care. How could I? I knew the whole story, and they didn't. Maybe they wrote it off as a fever dream of a man stranded in the desert,

or some elaborate joke meant to mind. them. I was coldly written off as a lunatic, placed into the care of Navy doctors to recuperate from the ordeal. However unbelievable my story, there were still some undeniable facts, facts that have mystified me ever since. We began our journey back to base in northwestern Kuwait, near the Iraqi border. When I emerged from the desert and was found, I was well over a hundred miles west of where we should have been. The town of Hafar al-Batine is in northeastern Saudi Arabia, but the road we took into town came from the west. It is true we deviated west when we spotted the dead city in the distance, but there's simply no way we could have gotten that far,

especially since we'd spent days before heading east. Not only that, but based on how far we'd travelled in the days before, we should have practically driven into the Persian Gulf before turning west. Instead, we were lost out in the middle of a trackless desert with no sign of anything but sand in the distance. How could we have gotten that far west? How is it possible that we found ourselves well beyond the fuel range of our tank in Saudi Arabia, well out of our way? Maybe if I knew the exact location of the dead city on a map, I could work it out, but I don't think any trace of that place still exists. I spent about a month in a Navy hospital healing and regaining my strength. A month might seem excessive for a case of exhaustion, dehydration, heat stroke and some small gases on my back.

and it was. I realized within a few days just why I was being kept there for so long. At least three or four times a week, I'd be summoned to talk with a Navy psychiatrist to go over the specifics of my story. It was clear at that point I was being accused of having lost my mind

and there clumsy attempts at therapy and emotional support then I could end up with a Section 8, or even worse, be confined to a psychiatric unit. From that point on, I clammed up and claimed I couldn't remember anything clearly about that time. My previous bravado, when first recounting my story to my battalion commander, was more or less exhausted, but I instead learned to be at peace with my own knowledge.

Because of all this, I spent far longer than I needed in their care, but after 33 days, I was finally deemed fit to return to my unit and discharged. My guess is that they just got tired of my obstinacy and decided to waste their time. on someone else. Returning to my unit was a more distressing experience. The others have been kept in suspense about our fate during that whole time, but the fact

that I returned alone and that Hillare, Castro and Lowry were never to be found again changed their attitude towards me. Maybe they thought I'd abandoned them out in the deserts, or that my wanderings were part of some ill-conceived attempt at desertion, but they always held me in suspicion from that point on. As confidently as I conveyed my story to ask,

superior offices and the Navy shrinks, I never uttered a word of it to them. By that point, I was exhausted with recounting the story, and I was starting to worry that repeating it elsewhere might let me throw them back in the sight war. My silence didn't help my case with my fellow Marines. I thought I was hiding something, perhaps some proof of something sinister on my part. If only they knew the truth. Others were more sympathetic, and thought I was still recovering emotionally from everything, but they were something of a minority. Marines are expected to bring their comrades home, no matter what, alive or dead, and I hadn't. So from then on, I was permanently tainted in their eyes.

I still re-enlisted later that year, confident that I was more or less recovered from my ordeal, and a little stronger besides. Because my comrades were turning against me, I was transferred to another tank battalion in the Marines and thankfully my checkered reputation didn't follow me. However, I wasn't fully done with the debriefings. Even years after that, I would still be periodically summoned by officers of an intelligence unit and some men from the Pentagon. They pressed me to go through the whole story again, eager to extract some new detail that I might have missed before. Of course, they still acted like it was horseshit, but they couldn't fool me. The fact they were still asking the same old questions

years later proved to me that something about my story had got to them. But even though they still had a record of my original report, the full unadulterated story I'd told my superiors before, I started to change my story. I was getting real tired of the cycle of constant interrogations and thinly veil suggestions that I was either a not job or a liar. The creatures became an unidentified enemy insurgency. The dead city was an unmarked and abandoned settlement,

and what happened to Lowry became. the consequence of stepping on some unexploded ordinance. They must have known I was deliberately changing my story because they wouldn't stop pressing me for details of my original account, even though I was now claiming it probably wasn't true. But, ironically, despite their assertions that the original story was ridiculous, the fact that they were still interested

has only made me more secure in my own knowledge. My last years in the core were rather rocky, despite the transfer. This was when I was starting to manifest symptoms of agoraphobia, particularly during training exercises at 29 parks. The sight of that open, an endless desert could instantly bring me back to those dark days, hopelessly lost with nothing but vast stretches of dirt in every direction.

At first my hands would shake, I'd become sweaty and riddled with anxiety. Things only got worse from there. On night exercises, I'd be trying to. desperately to suppress moments of intense dread and panic, remembering how those creatures had ambushed us from beneath our feet, hoping that we wouldn't have to spend a night out in the field. When we did, I wouldn't sleep a wink the whole night, always on alert for whatever might be prowling out in the wild, far from human civilization. They thought that any place on earth could be so barren, unpopulated and unexplored, never failed to fill me with anxiety.

I knew how it felt to somehow be lost or hidden from sight, even when you can see for miles in all directions. Makes me wonder what sort of things can be hidden out in barrenways and remote places around the world. Maybe even places like the dead city, or those horrible creatures. Having seen what I've seen, heard what I heard, anything seems possible when I behold the vast horizons and empty skies. I think it's because of this I developed disciplinary problems that marred my self. service record during those last years. Insubordination, absence without leave, occasionally theft of Marine Corps property. These were some of the more typical offences than I got myself into. But the most serious problem I developed was substance abuse, particularly alcohol. I couldn't

afford hard stuff on a Marine Corps salary, and weed never seemed to do anything for me. I had brawl with army guys or sailors, come back to base from leave while drunk or talk back to my superiors. I don't really know why I started acting this way. Maybe because military discipline no longer intimidated me, or because I needed a desperate escape from my thoughts and recurring nightmares. Or maybe I was just a lame drop. I faced some quite serious charges during these pathetic escapades, but thankfully they never pinned anything more egregious on me, and had emotion and some days in the stockade were the worst I got. In 1995, when my chance to re-enlist came up again, I opted to leave. Everybody else wanted me out, and I felt there was nothing

left for me to gain by staying. Despite the disciplinary problems, I still managed to receive an honourable discharge, and without any hits to my pension. And the rest, well, I've already told. Since then, I've just bumbled through life, checking off various milestones that any adult should. Hillare, Castro and Laurie never will know I could chalk that up to the fortunes of war but in our case I don't think that quite applies from their loss I learned a few things about the world

and about myself and in some ways I think I'm stronger because of it true my agoraphobia left me virtually crippled for years and that's because I know I know what I saw out there in the Arabian desert in those early days of March 1991 and I know that my friend Sillair, Lowry and Castro will never be coming back and I know that in the remote places of the world

anything can lurk between the vast and cursed sands under our feet if that means I'm slightly crazy then so be it but they simply can't be afraid any longer and the stress of it all is slowly killing them And that's why I'm finally seeking help for my condition. My therapist might think the story is just a nightmare or a delusion, and I'm willing to accept that. Somehow I have to reconcile not being afraid with knowing that the dead city and those creatures actually existed,

that any such things are possible on this planet. Somehow, I have to make a future for myself in such a world. When I awoke in the rubble of the dead city, flush with a victory, I learned that there is some comfort in knowing that there will eventually be an end to all things and an end to everything that comes after. And so once again, we reach the end of tonight's podcast. My thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories and to you for taking the time to listen.

Now, I'd ask one small favor of you. Wherever you get your podcast from, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast. That's it for this week, but I'll be back again, same time, same place, and I do so hope you'll join me once more. Until next time, sweet dreams, and bye-bye.