Clouds

  Chapter 10

  The hostility of a mob soon became the ambivalence of a poverty stricken nation. They were walking contradictions, fluctuations with feet. As soon as it had started, the mob's celebration became daily life. The Iraqi folk walked back down into their dirty suburb, drove their rusty cars, and rode their two story buses: life continued. It continued on day by day, rarely becoming more than a mirror of uncertainty.

  The rarity that Grant had not yet seen were true monsters. He had only caught second long glimpses of something lurking inside them. On December 23rd, demons became more than just bad thoughts. They grew faces, something to tie to their attributes...

  Grant found himself running through Baghdad, searching frantically for Bobby and the other twenty one men that had disappeared the night before. He ran senselessly, trying to navigate his way through a vast city. He was searching for a needle in a haystack. Where in the hell did he even start? At that moment, it didn't matter. All Grant knew was he couldn't stop running. It was all he could do.

  "I'll see you soon, buddy," were the final words Bobby Jackson said before disappearing with his group. They ran throughout Grant's head in an endless loop. He wouldn't face the possibility that he would never again see his best friend. He couldn't!

  The sun shone down heavily. The air was wet. And Grant was exhausted. He took a drink from his canteen, and swung his head aimlessly, looking in all directions with heavy eyes, and a throbbing headache. Ever since getting the news of Bobby's disappearance, Grant had been out on the streets, searching senselessly. In that time of twelve and a half hours, not one clue was found. There were no leads, no hints, not but a busy city.

  His walkie talkie became static holding voices, but Grant shut it off. This was his search, no one else's. They were looking too, of course, but all that mattered to Grant was Bobby. The others were expendable. They had never become the brothers Patrol Sergeant Ricks had said they were. In fact they hadn't even been friends, some not even acquaintances. They had never been more than people Grant tolerated. In no way did he want them dead, but if Grant had to choose Bobby or twenty men to live, he would have chosen Bobby. It was that easy.

  The pursuit of sanity pushed him into the heart of Baghdad, and then to the edge of it. Grant stopped to catch his breath, and observed life around him. Suddenly, caught in his periphery was a man dressed in a Santa suit. He knew it was a clue. Without even thinking, Grant walked up to the man, only to watch a card fall from his suit. Without saying it, the man implied truths on the card, and walked away.

  Grant grabbed the card, tore open the top, and pulled out a sheet of paper:

  The truth you seek rests in a house lit by commercialistic tradition. Ho! Ho! Ho!

  "What the hell does that mean?" asked Grant out of breath. "Commercialistic tradition-Christmas!" the clue hit him like a pillow filled with feathers. It was a realization that lit him up inside, a realization that filled his famished self with food for the soul. Everything would be alright. But, it was one clue. The city was vast beyond compare. Thousands walked the streets. Buildings protruded from the cement like stalks of corn. Yet, somehow the task seemed meant for him. It was his puzzle to complete. With the prize being: finding those who were lost.

  Grant looked around the city feeling insignificant, like a speck of dust in a shedding air, or a star in an endless night sky. After staring with awe for a moment more, he began running once again, first tucking his M-16 beneath its strap, and hanging it from his back.

  Not knowing which way to run, Grant started by going straight. Even though he had been in Baghdad over four months, Grant hadn't yet scratched the surface of the city. He still was in a poverty painted suburbia, looking at buildings riddled with graffiti and wear.

  His search brought him far, only to reveal a dead end? or maybe a new beginning. As he had been most of the day, Grant was out of breath. He swung his head back and forth, left and right, seeing road signs with Iraqi words strewn about. They were fluid Arabic strokes connecting to form a sense of direction: useful for fluent readers of the language, useless for the others.

  He looked back down at the card, flipped it around, and sighed. There was nothing but a name in front of numbers: Belshazzar 816

  "Belshazzar 816?" asked Grant with heavy breaths. For a moment he thought it pertained to a book in the bible, until he realized that Belshazzar was not a book in the bible. Next, Grant found himself wondering if it was a room number in a hotel named Belshazzar. Maybe it was a street. Then again, maybe it was just a name followed by numbers.

  No! It couldn't have been. It hadn't been an accident that an Iraqi man dressed up like Santa Clause, gave him a card with a clue, a number, and a name. The answer was staring him in the face like a monster leering through a window. Without knowing it, he knew the answer. For five minutes, Grant sorted between possibilities of a hotel, a room, a street, or coincidence. He still was unsure, but it all was pointing to a room number.

  Grant tucked the card away in his pocket, and began walking. He walked for another mile until coming to a phone booth holding a phone book. Grant picked it up, only to find that it was all in the same foreign writing

  "Do you know where the Belshazzar hotel is?" he asked a passing crowd. "Does anybody know where the Belshazzar hotel is?!" after countless folks passed, a small girl approached him.

  "Sir." she said softly.

  "Hi, do you know the Belshazzar hotel?" asked Grant, enunciating each and every word.

  "No, we do not have a Belshazzar hotel. But, we have people." she grinned beneath a dirty face.

  "What about a street?"

  "I don't think so, just people."

  "Thank you."

  "Bye." she skipped back to a beckoning man, and then walked away, glancing back at Grant every once in a while, until disappearing behind a building.

  "A name?" he sighed. "How does that help m-" Grant paused, caught speechless by an epiphany holding him by the throat. In that moment he knew exactly what it meant. It wasn't a room number, a street, or a book in the bible. It was as she had said: a person. Grant didn't want to face the consequences of loosening his monster, but he knew exactly who Belshazzar 816 was. It was a man followed by the day he died, the man who had killed Patrol Sergeant Ricks? the man whose head Grant bashed flat.

  It became clear to him that his actions had resulted in revenge. There is always a consequence for your actions. Grant faced his on Monday, December 23rd, 2013.

  Now that he knew that Belshazzar 816 was Belshazzar 8-16-2013, Grant had a heading. He no longer was wandering aimlessly through a city populated by millions. Grant now found himself running back the way he came. He ran back through the city, taking long strides, but finding his body rejecting everything he had. All at once his legs broke hold beneath him, and Grant fell to the ground. The sun shone down heavily, plucking him dry of energy, and leaving him cold at the feet. Desperately, he tried to bring himself back up to a stand, but his legs quivered like the inside of a bell after being hit.

  With fatigue growing in his labored breaths, Grant unscrewed the cap off of his canteen, and poured water down his throat. It burnt like dry ice, but soothed him nonetheless. For an hour and a half, he sat on the sidewalk with his back resting against the wall of a building. After a time of rest, he was able to stand only to find his legs shaking. Grant grabbed the wall, and stepped forward one step at a time. Soon, he was able to walk without the holding onto the wall, and soon after that he was able to jog.

  Five miles separated Grant from the end of this game, five long miles beneath a hot, sweaty sun. His steps had digressed from frantic sprinting to light jogging. It was all his exhausted self could muster. Every time Grant swallowed it seemed like his lungs were pierced with shards of glass. Nearly every breath was accompanied by a wheeze, followed by a heavy cough.

  His body was rejecting his process. It needed rest. Grant hadn't slept for over thirty hours now. It needed a clean slate to build its day on, but Grant wasn't providing (o
r allowing) it. Step by step was his process. Slow steps that dragged across rough, cracked ground beneath him. Five miles of progress took Grant another three and a half hours.

  The sun had disappeared from the sky, leaving the city dimly lit by a pale moon, and dull stars. It had taken him all day to arrive at the end, but he finally had. Grant pulled the card out from his pocket once more, verified his epiphany, and then walked away from the mound of bricks that Patrol Sergeant Ricks had died in front of.

  As he walked down the declining street, Grant remembered his hatred, and pain. He remembered bludgeoning the man to death with the butt of his M-16 rifle. And once again, he felt his monster poke at his conscience, leer at his impulses, and speak softly in one ear. It wanted out like before. It wanted to kill more. Part of Grant wanted that too.

  Each step was one reeking of memories, and past sins. Grant pulled out his flashlight, and shone it down the pathway in front of him. Sitting lopsided in the street between rundown homes there sat a present. It sat dull and dark in the flashlight's cast. Grant picked it up, and tore open the box. Lying inside was another sheet of paper:

  Your search ends, where your sin's blood trail stops.

  No longer was it a mystery to him. It was spelt out in a deducible riddle. It translated into: Your search ends, where Belshazzar's blood trail stops.

  It all was in front of him now. All Grant had to do was descend down the path lined with dirty suburbia. Somewhere close, his blood trail ended. Grant put the second card in his pocket, and shone the flashlight on the darkness in front of him. He took steps laced with a feeling of success. Yet, something told him it wasn't right. Why a game, if it was going to be a happy ending? It was honestly something he hadn't thought throughout his search. He hadn't suspected a bad end. Grant had taken it as a warning. But, was it?

  Every step brought him closer. He descended farther and farther into a growing darkness, glancing at pitch black houses on each side, and a moon covering up with a cloud. But, sitting at the end of blackness was light. Something he wasn't able to say about his walk through a dark tunnel.

  After taking ten more steps, Grant found himself at a one story house holding a smoking chimney, and a various array of lights. Warily, he glanced left and then right. He pulled his M-16 rifle off of his back, cocked it, pointing the barrel out in front of him. Something wasn't right about it. Something hadn't been right from the very first moment Santa walked the streets of Baghdad.

  Although reluctant, he stepped forward as if in a mine field. Grant shone the light down on the ground, picked his steps carefully, putting his foot down where it looked clear. Eventually, he was standing at the door, looking at a wreath with three red bows tied around it. Hesitantly, he grabbed the handle, and turned. It swung open with a screech, provoking a cringe, and a sniff. Grant walked into a calmly lit home, closed the door, and sneered. Something smelled rank beneath the smell of eggnog and cinnamon. He looked around with a brow furrowed into cringing eyes.

  The fire in the fireplace crackled; the star atop the highest bough shone brightly, and the atmosphere seeped nostalgia. Grant looked left and right, and took two steps farther forward. Stacked neatly beneath a shedding tree were presents wrapped in shimmering paper. He looked around, ignoring the smell of warning, and the scent of common sense.

  Although reluctant, Grant found himself soon grabbing a present from the bottom of the tree.

  "Bobby!" he yelled loudly, hearing his voice slipping into the walls. "Where are you?" it wasn't right. Something strange was happening. The game wasn't over. Grant feared that it had only just begun. The house was nothing but a room decorated with warmth and draped in happiness. One room. One night. One event.

  After straightening out wandering eyes, Grant directed his attention back on the shimmering green box sitting in his hand. Grant set down his gun, clicked his flashlight off, and pried his fingers beneath a piece of clear tape. A perfectly wrapped gift requires only three pieces of tape. The box in Grant's hand had three pieces of tape: one on top and one on each side.

  His hesitation grew into shivering skin, soon becoming quivering bones. The three pieces of tape were off, and the wrapping paper slid off the box like a dress off a mannequin. Written in marker, doused in glitter, and sitting on top of the box was the word Hetel.

  "Not more notes." Grant sighed. "Please, just help me find him." he prayed. After sighing a few times through and calming a sour stomach, Grant pulled the lid off the top of the box, only to find himself shattered to a point beyond full repair. His eyes bulged wide. He drooled bile, and his heart dropped to the bottom of his stomach. Demons became something more in that moment. They grew a face, something to tie to their attributes:

  Sitting lifeless was the severed head of Patrol Sergeant Hetel. His eyes had been cleanly removed from their sockets, and filled with ribbon candy. His mouth held four unwrapped candy canes. Grant tried to find words to say. He tried to scream, cry, or even grab the gun to kill himself with. But he was frozen. He could only stare down at a man's head being used as nothing but a candy dish.

  Instead of loosening his grip and plunging into a realm of insanity, Grant breathed. He licked bile from his chapped lips and glanced over at the mound of gifts. It hit him like a freight train: they were all dead. He didn't want to tell himself that Bobby's severed head sat in a box, being used as nothing but a candy dish. It was something Grant couldn't comprehend. Though low in comprehension, he realized that his brother, his best friend was dead.

  The realization took breath from his lungs, made his hands shrivel into claws, forced his body to fall to the ground and curl up like a baby in a murky womb. The box smashed against the floor, the head slightly bobbled, and a tape began to play:

  "Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light. From now on, our troubles will be out of sight." No one sings Christmas songs like Bing Crosby.

  Grant found himself cold and alone-more alone than he had ever been. The air was warm. But, it felt like needles stabbing his skin, like hot water hitting frozen hands. His breath was labored, and his mind was quiet. There were no voices of contemplation, no questions. There was only pain that had been hollowed out by realization, by reality.

  For twenty minutes, Grant curled his knees up to his chin, and stared at the crackling fire. An aroma unlike any other filled the air. It was both sweet and sickening, both warm and incredibly cold. The pain felt by Grant would never be explainable and he would never know the full extent of it. It was a message meant just for him and he was the only one that would experience it entirely alone.

  After two long blinks and one single tear, Grant sat up, and grabbed hold of his gun. He wrapped his lips around the barrel of his M-16, and held his finger over the trigger.

  "I-I can't go o-on." he whispered with leaky eyes. "I can't!"

  "Listen to me, kiddo." his father said, appearing in front of the fireplace without his monster. "It is not your time. Do not do this. Chelsea needs you. Kali needs you. Your mother needs you."

  "Wa-what is there?" he asked quietly, still wrapping his lips around the barrel of his gun. "What am I good for?"

  "I left you, Grant." his father said while resituating his hat, and wiping his thickened five o'clock shadow. "I left you to fend for yourself. I didn't want to. I wanted to stay. I wanted to teach you how to be a man. But you are a better man than I ever was."

  "You aren't there, dad. You never were." Grant began to pull his lips off of the barrel while sniffling. "You left me alone. God left when you did."

  "He's still there, kiddo, just look."

  "No, not anymore, I buried Him when I buried you."

  "But, you never buried me, Grant. Maybe that was all a dream. Maybe this is all a dream." his father smiled warmly, and then disappeared...

  He woke up, hugging his knees, and looking at a glowing fireplace. It hadn't been a dream. Hetel's head still sat severed in a box, being used as a candy dish. Twenty other gifts still sat beneath the tree, promising t
he same morbid surprise inside.

  By a strength unknown, Grant was able to stand, grab his gun and flashlight, and walk out the front door. He closed it behind him. Sitting next to the house he propped his flashlight up at an angle, and then pulled out his notepad:

  I am Grant Smith,

  Day 221: late December 23rd 2013

  I come to you tonight, broken. I am fighting to even care. I am fighting to even live. The danger Patrol Sergeant Ricks had warned me about wasn't so much physical, as it was mental. I am insane.

  Hetel's head is nothing but a candy dish wrapped in skin. And it's my fault. By unleashing my monster on Belshazzar, I killed twenty men, and one best friend. He was my only best friend, my only friend. I've come to the conclusion that God me to feel shame day in and day out. He wants me to surrender myself to the idea of him. He is nothing but a dictator with a God complex.

  I've been told time and time again that all I have to do is believe, but dad doesn't seem to understand that the world is not the way he left it. It is Godless. I am Godless. Any faith I had, any hope I felt, it's gone now. I'm not sure it was ever there to begin with. It was only me hoping for something better. There is nothing better, it's only temporary happiness. It always is.

  I have nothing to say, nothing to tell you. I just need someone close, someone who holds all my darkest secrets where I keep them. You journal, you have been that. Tell me what to do now. Lead me somewhere, anywhere. I am in darkness, being stripped clean of skin by my own urges. I want them dead. I hate them all. Am I capable of love? Do I really love Chelsea, or is she just part of my ensemble? Is everything about me fake?

  At this moment, as this pen touches this paper, it doesn't really matter either way. Maybe I will make it through the night. Maybe I will marry her, and be a father to my daughter. Maybe I won't?

  Hopelessness had never been darker than it was at that moment. Hollowed out and cold, Grant only stared at a dark sky. Heaven had never been farther away; hell had never been closer. All he could do was take one breath after another. He had to keep going. As much as Grant wanted to escape life and its hardships, he couldn't. Kali Marie was coming, and Chelsea needed him.

  Hesitantly, Grant grabbed the walkie talkie from his belt, clicked it on, and spoke:

  "Commander Bishop, this is Smith. I found them." he said with blank eyes...