Page 4 of The Darkness Within
Gutierrez leaned against my shoulder. He was probably too exhausted to sit up straight any longer. He didn’t even sound like the same man he was four days ago. His voice sounded haunted and weak. Broken.
“Of course they will,” I rallied, trying to give him hope.
Did I believe that? I didn’t know. Maybe. If they did come back for us, what would they find? What would be left of us by then?
The conversation earned me a kick of the guard’s boot into my hip, and I grunted in pain.
“Name!” he shouted. “Intel! Intel!”
I could barely make out what he was asking me, let alone figure out why he was asking it. What did he care what my fucking name was? Did he think he was going to recognize me? Like we’d met in a past life? Why did it matter who I was?
I refused to give in, remaining silent as he continued to shout in my face, but it only earned me another vicious kick.
“Intel!” The command was followed by a stream of Pashto that sounded completely incoherent to me.
My silence was pissing him off more, so he turned on Gutierrez, kicking and shouting at him to give up intel. Frustrated beyond all reason, Gutierrez mustered the last bit of his strength to scream, a long, loud wail of desperation and frustration. The guard knocked him in the head with the butt of his rifle hard enough to knock Gutierrez out.
My entire body stiffened with panic as he turned his attention back to me, shouting in my face, sticking the muzzle of his gun against my lips.
“Intel! Name!”
When I remained silent, he shoved the muzzle into my mouth, chipping my bottom tooth. The cold metal tasted metallic, and I could taste the bitter astringent tang of gunpowder. I pushed at the barrel with my tongue, but I wasn’t strong enough to spit it out.
He continued to shout, sweating and angry, as I remained silent. I shook like a leaf, sweating, and about to piss myself again, but I’d be goddamned if I’d let him see my fear. He cocked the gun, sliding a bullet into the chamber, and I knew the rest of my life would be measured in minutes or seconds. My heart beat so fast and loud there was no way he couldn’t hear it. I really had nothing left to lose by speaking. Remaining silent was no longer an option. If he squeezed his finger the tiniest millimeter, he’d blow my head clear off my shoulders, and it would splatter onto Gutierrez.
“Intel!” he shouted one last time, jamming the barrel so far down my throat I gagged.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I hated myself for showing them to him. My words sounded garbled around the muzzle, and he finally pulled it free of my mouth.
“Sergeant Nashville Aidan Sommers. United States Army. 89-6717-4613.”
Of course, he didn’t understand what I was saying, which was why I couldn’t understand why he’d even asked, but he continued to shout over and over.
“Name! Intel!”
“Sergeant Nashville Aidan Sommers. United States Army. 89-6717-4613.”
His booted foot destroyed my ribs.
“Sergeant Nashville Aidan Sommers. United States Army. 89-6717-4613.”
The barrel of his gun made dents or fractures in my skull.
“Sergeant Nashville Aidan Sommers. United States Army. 89-6717-4613.”
The more I recited my name, rank, and ID number, the more detached I felt, calmer, falling into a trance as I repeated the words and numbers over and over.
“Sergeant Nashville Aidan Sommers. United States Army. 89-6717-4613.”
And then he switched things up. The guards were trained by the Taliban to excel in interrogation tactics, a.k.a. torture. He pointed the gun at Gutierrez, and my body went cold. He knew I didn’t care about my own life, but I cared about my brother. He was going to leverage Gutierrez’s life against me for information. Instead of threatening me to see if I complied, he acted impulsively, squeezing the trigger before I could agree to his terms. The gunshot echoed through the tunnel, deafening me until my ears rang. Pieces of leather and bone splattered in every direction. He blew the top of Gutierrez’s boot clean off. His blood soaked into the dirt floor, and his scream was unlike anything I’d ever heard before.
Louder than the dogs’ barking.
Louder than the guards’ shouting.
Louder than the ringing in my ears.
All I could hear was his pain.