The Guys on my Flat

Chapter Thirty Seven

I walked Adam home and went straight to the Captain's apartment like I promised I would. But this time the front door was locked.

I growled softly as I clambered up the stairs to my apartment, went out onto the balcony and climbed the fire escape down to his floor. I leaped around the building and hopped onto the Captain's floor and looked inside. The curtains were in the way.

I managed to open the doors and pushed aside the curtains. Ally didn't seem to be around this time.

She must've gone shopping.

I walked into the apartment and frowned at the thin layer of dust that glazed almost everything. The poor Captain, having cancer and not being able to move around, I think the Captain was in his late 80's now. At least he had a good life.

I walked over to his bedroom door and saw him sitting in a chair. He smiled when he saw me; he seemed so tired yet so weak. "My dear Grace," he greeted beckoning me over. I sat on his lap and felt his warm, old man embrace.

"I haven't seen you in a while, Gracie," he informed holding me a little tighter.

I smiled, "stuff's been going on. Everybody was telling me I wasn't allowed to come see you for some reason. I recently did this ballet dance; I think you would've liked it. I was one of the main dancers," I informed.

"You always were a dancer, Grace," he said.

There was a long moment of silence before he continued, "Gracie, I think it's time that I told you one more story from my wartime," he informed.

Those last words, one more, made me want to cry but I nodded.

"Okay, Captain," I said.

*

His words were old and frail, unlike most of the stories he told, this one seemed to cause more of an emotional response compared to the others.

"It was during my last year in the war. We were fighting against some Israelis, you remember, you were a nurse at the time," he informed.

I knew just too simply nod when he added me into stories. "We had been dropped off in the middle of a small town; we were in charge of finding out the enemy's position at that moment. You and the other nurses were in a base a few miles away from the town," he told, "there were six of us walking through the town and... we got ambushed by a group known as the Blacks, a small terrorist group. One of us got hit and we took cover. We were there for most of the night, they wouldn't let us leave and one of our own was bleeding out.

"We believed that the Blacks were trying to kidnap some of the children we had recovered and make them into child soldiers. Then there was silence at around 0400. And we slowly came out, but we weren't ambushed in the common sense."

"What happened?" I asked.

He remained silent, "there was this little boy... maybe four or five years old. He was so little and... someone had strapped a bomb to him and given him a button to push," the Captain informed, "he yelled out that us Americans were gonna die and that he would be alright... and he blew himself up... killed three of our men and shattered one of my eardrums..."

I stared somewhat horrified, "I didn't know until much later... the Blacks had told the boy that when the bomb went off he'd kill the Americans and do right with his own people... and the bomb was magic, that it wouldn't kill him..." I felt tears swell into my eyes as I thought about the little boy.

"We had to abandon the mission, for the Blacks had scattered during the night. The remaining three of us made our way back to the base, but when we got there everybody had been slaughtered but a few... some of the children, a few other soldiers and you." He softly ran his fingers through my hair, "when we got there we were taken captive by the Blacks and they tortured my friends and the children... they raped them and they forced me to watch... they raped you and they forced me to watch..." he looked on the verge of tears.