A Shot in the Dark

Magic.
A spider web popped into existence 15 feet from where he stood. Jon realized he had made it appear on the rear window of a white S-10 pickup.
“Oh, shit.”
That pickup, with government plates, was now rolling slowly away from him and veering sharply to the left.
“Oh shit. Oh shit.”
Behind him Thompson keyed up the radio handset and shouted “Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.”
Jon lowered his M-16 as the pickup ground to a halt against a concrete barrier and stalled out.
Sergeant Phillips yelled, “Cover,” but Jon couldn’t move. The NCO sprinted across the road and tackled him. The two landed in a pile behind a double wall of sandbags.
Clunk, clunk, clunk.
“Blocker 1,” said Phillips. Three .50 caliber rounds had just struck the bed of the pickup which protruded from the relative safety of the concrete jersey barriers at the rear of the Traffic Control Point. His two-word explanation was followed immediately by the roar of the “Ma Deuce” mounted on the humvee code named Blocker 1.
More clunks were followed by more roar as the muzzle noise caught up to the bullets striking the truck body.
“The truck’s stopped. Thompson. Thompson,” shouted the Sergeant, “It’s stopped. Tell Blocker 1 to cease fire.”
The clunks and the roar stopped and Jon could hear a voice he knew to be Specialist Stevens say, “Blocker 1 ceasing fire,” over the radio. Thompson repeated the message to Sgt. Phillips who jumped to his feet then helped Jon to his. Weapon ready, Phillips circled clockwise behind the pockmarked truck and motioned for Jon to approach from the passenger side blind spot.
“Fuckin’ dumbass,” said Phillips. Walking toward the pickup in a half-crouch, he stood up abruptly, flicked the selector switch on his M-16 from “Burst” to “Safe” and let it fall to his side. “Thompson, get Lieutenant Vaughn at Stonewall H.Q. Tell ‘em we need medics up here. We got a…damn…we got a mess.”
“Sergeant, the L. T. wants to know what kind of mess,” said the radio man a moment later.
“Tell ‘em the CP is secured. All Virginia personnel are uninjured, but the driver of the run vehicle has been shot. Tell him…tell him…aw shit. I’ll do it.” The highest ranking soldier at the checkpoint walked over and took the handset from Thompson. “Stonewall, this is TCP Virginia, over.”
“This is Stonewall, go ahead Virginia, over.”
“Lieutenant, it’s the casualty. He’s a friendly, over.”
“You sure of that, over?”
“Yeah, pretty sure. He’s wearing Air Force fatigues, over.”
“Okay. We’re sending medics. What’s his condition, over?”
“I’d say he’s deader than hell, Sir. Took one right in the back of the head, over.”
“Understood. The CO and I’ll be there in two. We’ve got Blocker 1 coming up behind you to reinforce the checkpoint until this all gets sorted out. Go ahead and close it down. No traffic in or out, over.”
“Roger that, Stonewall. Virginia out.”
“Stonewall, out.”
“You heard him men. Let’s lock this thing down. Anderson. Anderson.” Sergeant Phillips looked over at Jon. He was standing stock still; staring through the passenger window at the figure slumped over the steering wheel. He focused on the small black hole at the center of the spider web.
“Jon,” Sgt. Phillips shouted. “I need you to focus man. We gotta close down the checkpoint. Blocker 1 is coming up for extra fire power in case this guy wasn’t alone. I need you up in front to stop traffic and turn ‘em around.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Jon. You okay?”
“I…yeah. I mean ‘Yes, Sergeant.’”
“Okay. Let’s go then.”
Blocker 1 pulled up seconds later as Jon walked up past the barriers that made up the entry side of the TCP. He looked back and saw Stevens jump out of the humvee and inspect the truck with Sgt. Phillips.
Jon thought about what Stevens was seeing. He thought about the syrupy red drips flowing down the inside of the windshield. The analogy went further in his mind before he could stop it. Blood was syrup over pancakes with…not nuts….but little bits of teeth and bone. The butter: a tiny scoop of grey matter on top.
He walked to the edge of the road and vomited. When he stopped retching he could hear engine noise and looked back down the road toward Camp Delta. It was zero-three-hundred-hours and the bright lights around the fence blurred his vision, but Jon could just make out the headlights of an approaching humvee. That was the Cap and L.T.
Jon turned again and faced the road that led to the other parts Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. He didn’t want to look at the truck anymore. He heard the second humvee, with its familiar diesel rumbling, pull into the other end of the checkpoint. Jon tried to stand straight as possible and imagined how soldierly he looked to the two officers he knew would soon be walking up to him.
“Jon.” It was not the lieutenant’s voice, but Rob Young’s, a Specialist like himself who enlisted the same weekend he did. They had even gone to Boot together. “Lieutenant says for me to relieve you. He wants to talk to you and Sgt. Phillips for a sec before the Colonel gets here.”
Jon dropped his head. He took off the reflective road vest he was wearing, handed it to Young, and walked back toward the center of TCP Virginia. The medic, who must have ridden with the officers, had already checked on the driver and was now radioing for instructions on what to do with the body. The officers, too, were walking away from the pickup speaking in low tones to each other.
“Alright,” said Captain Bruno, “what happened?”
“Sir, we were just mannin’ the CP,” began Phillips, “when this truck comes up, drives around the guard shack on the wrong side of the road, and we—“
“He was on the wrong side of the road?” asked the Lieutenant.
“Yes sir. Never really slowed down. Just drove right by us in that lane there.”
“Okay. And after that?” the CO continued.
“Well it kinda took us by surprise, Sir. I mean, that’s never happened before. But I jump up and yell ‘Halt’ and he just keeps going. Not speedin’ really, just rolling through.”
The officers looked at each other. Then the Captain asked, “Did you order him to halt again?”
“Yessir. Two more times.”
“And what was Specialist Anderson doing?”
“Well by that time, Sir, and it had to be just a coupla’ seconds, we were both running after the vehicle. Me on the driver side and Anderson was…well right about where he is now.”
“And you’re absolutely sure the truck wasn’t stopping?”
“Yes. Yes, Sir. There were no break lights or anything.”
“Okay. So who fired?”
“Anderson did, Sir. He was running, jumped that first barrier, and fired. I heard the shot and the truck just kinda turned into that next line of barriers.”
“When did the code rabbit go out?” asked Bruno.
“Right then, Sir. The truck hit that thing and that’s when I heard Thompson call the rabbit.”
“Okay, Sergeant. You’ll probably have to tell that story a hundred times tonight so get used to it.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Now you, Specialist,” said the Lieutenant.
“Sir, that’s pretty much it.”
“I know, but we’re gonna have a shit storm on our hands if we can’t nail down the specifics before the higher brass gets here.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“First, you two have rounds chambered?”
“No, Sir.”
“You’re absolutely sure?”
“Yes, Sir,”
“Good. Anderson, what point did you think it would be necessary to fire at the vehicle?”
“When the vehicle refused to stop for Sgt. Phillips, Sir.”
“Okay. So when did you actually chamber the round?”
“After the second ‘halt,’ Sir.”
“And when did you fire?”
“After the third.”