Private Monkey Ghost Story

Chapter 3

Everyone was asleep in the day room. Mann had given up trying to get TV reception through the snow and was reading a porn mag. We were passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth and sipping off it now and then.

There would be an eerie moaning down the hallways and behind the stairwell doors. The front outer doors would shake now and then, and my imagination always painted the LT, his skin white and waxy, pawing at the door with frozen hands. It had been over six hours since he had left.

The fact he hadn't returned didn't seem to bother anyone, and I'd be goddamned if I was going to show that it bothered me.

I jumped at a loud howling noise echoing down the hallway.

"Relax, Monkey, it's just the wind," Mann said, closing the porn mag and setting it on the counter.

"Why didn't we call in a search and rescue?" I asked, pointing at the large bank of phones. There were over twelve of them, all them plugged in with big old-style sockets.

"Only one of those works, and that's to an office at Corps. Right now, nobody is there because we aren't operational," Mann told me. Another moan drifted down the hallway and I shivered. Down the hallway, the lights flickered, and some stayed off. Mann looked down the hallway.

"I hate this fucking place," he grumbled. "We'll call Fifth Corps tomorrow and let them know we're down an LT." he saw me shiver again as a full-blown shriek roared down the stairwell. "Look, just follow Cobb's advice, Private Monkey, he used to be an arctic environment trainer before he got busted for selling crack."

I nodded.

Mann went back to reading his porn mag, and I began going through the drawers looking for something to read. I found the CQ logbook and began reading it. There was only two months' worth the entries there. Apparently Cobb had been here, by himself, with just the construction workers coming in during the day, for nearly a month. The log held records of screaming, and a few times of hearing sobbing coming from the third-floor bathroom. About a week into it, Cobb had stopped walking a patrol of the upper floors.

The eighteen of us had only arrived in the last month

. I was the first new person besides the LT to arrive in a week. They'd logged when I'd arrived, that I'd received my initial TA-50 issue, and had received linen and been placed in my room.

Mann had logged that the LT had gone outside, without protective gear, into a blizzard despite being warned, and had not returned after one hour and was presumed dead. He wasn't the only one. Apparently, an E-5 had gotten drunk and had gone outside, and had not returned. He too was presumed dead.

*BANG BANG BANG*

The noise came from upstairs, right above us. I jumped, and Mann jumped too. I didn't feel so bad.

"What the fuck was that?" I asked.

"We don't know," Mann admitted. "It happens now and then. Fuck, I hope you're not a chickenshit, Monkey." Mann unlocked a desk drawer and pulled out two M1911A1 Colt .45s in holsters.

"Put this on, son," Mann told me. Mann looked to be in his mid-30s, and I responded by nodding and copying the way he belted it on.

"Why are we..." Mann shushed me. I opened my mouth to ask why, and a loud shriek came boiling down the stairwell and out of the vents. Following it was a sound like a woman sobbing loudly. The hair on my neck stood up.

Mann handed me a flashlight, and I saw the day to the day room shut, and heard the click of the lock.