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Sean's Bullet

Sean's Bullet (2013: A Stellar Collection) A military-fiction short story - October 23, 2013

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Bullets zipped through the stifling desert air, whistling as they flew by in the distance. I couldn’t see all of the damages in the rural town, but we knew the scene: thick, dusted streets that were paved with so much trash that the sour odor seemed poisonous. Windows, if there had ever been any before, were shattered, and the open view revealed the ceiling beams and doors, crushed into mere splinters. The buildings that hadn’t fallen yet were starting to, crumbling to ruins by the months of war, and bullet holes would paint sickening designs of bloodied history or necessary destruction. We weren’t here to destroy; we were here to live, but, more importantly, we were here to win.

            “Move forward,” our captain clarified over the radio as all forty of us—distributed between twenty-some, heavily armed Stryker vehicles—rolled forward. Only minutes before, my best friend, Sean Copeland, and Specialist Rino had been sent in by themselves to assess the situation. It would be their duty to report back to us, to let us know when and where we would enter in order to accomplish the takeover. Apparently they had done just that. “Move forward,” our leader repeated, and the vehicles rumbled into gear, rolling forward into the town as an ominous thunderstorm would roll off of an ocean—loud but without much else. Beyond the crushing wheels, it was eerily quiet, dangerously still.

            Bullets were no longer whistling, and no one seemed to be breathing. The mission only began when the first roadside bomb was spotted, and, in defusing it, another one exploded. A light enveloped us, and dust plastered to my face—each piece of sand feeling like chiropractic needles digging too deep. I spit up hot liquid, wiping my burning face with my hand, expecting to see blood but seeing saliva instead.

            “Take a defensive position!” Orders screamed only loud enough to be heard over the radio. “Left. Right. Down.” Directions. Captain was giving specific instructions on where to go, and all I could listen for was my name.

            “Wilson!” he shouted at me this time. “Evacuate Rino and—”

            “—shooting!” Rino’s voice split over the radio at that exact moment, static louder than the bullets, all the chaos, all the orders. “Captain!” Rino screamed. “Copeland! Copeland’s shooting!”

...

Joining the infantry hadn’t been my plan at first. It actually hadn’t been my plan at all. I was an eighteen-year-old boy, the oldest of three, and I was living the dream on the east coast. With the ocean below my bedroom window, my biggest worry was when and for how long I could disappear to the sea to sit, to swim, to think, to pretend that I didn’t exist. My life wasn’t horrible, but I didn’t see any passionate reason to love it. Being a child sucked. Being a teenager was worse. And being an adult seemed so far away that I had a better chance at swimming the length of the ocean than growing up.

            The day I signed up, the Marines had been at my high school for a week, offering this, clarifying that. They all seemed so put together—all of those boy teenagers made men—and that’s what appealed to me. To be a man. A man with focus. That’s what all the Marines seemed to be, and that’s what I wanted to be.

            My parents hadn’t agreed—neither did my siblings—but they didn’t have a choice once my signature hit that paper. I was shipped off to training—then base—and then Iraq in what seemed to be a week but was really two years. Even with all the time spent running, preparing, shooting, lifting, sweating, suffering, and preparing some more, I hadn’t really grown attached to anyone. In fact, I couldn’t even remember many of their names. I memorized all of the specialized terms instead. Sergeant. M-4. IED. Stryker. Insurgents. Ocean.