BINGO

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Jack stared at it, his gaze drifting to the rest of the dilapidated cabin. The place used to belong to Staff Sergeant Derrick Richardson, and since the Staff Sergeant didn’t have any kin left, he passed it on to the last surviving member of Romeo squad, which just so happened to be Jack. He’d been to the cabin before as the squad often came together between deployments, and in some regards, knew the place better than his apartment in the city. With the cabin in his possession only, no one should’ve been able to get in.

Yet the candle was lit.

The darkness of the overhead storm clouds obscured the sun, and the shadows in the forest grew darker and denser for it. Jack cautiously approached the front door to the cabin and drew his sidearm. He wouldn’t shoot the intruder on sight, but it was better to be safe than sorry in case whoever lit the candle was a threat.

He fumbled with the keys in his off-hand, and cautiously opened the front door. The hinges creaked as it swung open, revealing a seemingly empty cabin.

It was as Jack remembered; a completely chaotic mess of clashing aesthetics. The kitchen was the most modern part, with running water that came from both a nearby well and river, a dishwasher, and even a walk-in fridge. Opposite from the kitchen was the main sitting area, with a couch straight from the eighties in all its plastic glory, bearskin rug in front of a cold and quiet fireplace, hunting trophies mounted on the walls, an old multi-bulbed ceiling light, and the lit candle in the window. Behind the front door was the stairwell to the upstairs, where he knew the bedroom would look like something out of a psycho patient’s room, with barren walls, no windows, and a clinical-looking bed with crisp white linen sheets. Jack was surgical in his sweep. Years of training and actual usage in the field looking for terrorists taught him the most efficient way to clear buildings. First, he cleared the ground floor, moving through the open kitchen and sitting area. He opened every possible cabinet where a person could hide. Finding no one, he moved to the upstairs, eyes glued to the next corner he needed to round. He found no one in the bedroom, or the attached bathroom.

“Clear.” The walls killed the sound of his voice. But each step in his combat boots echoed beneath the floor boards.

With nothing left to do, he strolled back to the sitting room and placed himself on the couch, reliving the same resistant give as he sunk into the spot closest to the armrest. From his position, he was staring into the fireplace, and even though it was cold and hadn’t been used in years, he could remember what it was like. Every year Romeo gathered together in the cabin; the fire was always roaring, and while Staff Sergeant Richardson was in the old rocker that used to be his grandfather’s, Corporals Michael Lockheed and Dina Rhodes would be chatting shit in the kitchen, and Privates James Martinez and Thomas Horton would be sitting in front of the fireplace with more than a few beers already opened and emptied.

Jack could hear the laughter in his memories, could feel the jubilation that they were all still alive and well. He remembered seeing the picture Martinez showed him of a newborn baby girl, him and his wife both sobbing as they failed to look into the camera. He could overhear the whispered secrets that Lockheed was getting married and that Rhodes was getting set up with blind dates she had no interest in.

Rain pattered against the cabin’s roof, and with it, a moment of stillness. In that moment, memories he thought he pushed out of his head came back as softly and as loudly as the storm outside, memories of deployment in the Middle East. It didn’t matter where, because all Jack could remember was that everyone who was shooting at him were dressed the same as the people they were not supposed to shoot at, and that those shooters could as quickly appear as the did disappear. Sometimes he overheard Lockheed crying in the barracks after missions when children got involved, and Horton at one point even asked Jack if he thought they were doing the right thing. He didn’t have answers then. Sure as shit didn’t have them now.

Silence filled the emptiness, speaking about nothing and everything.

The smell of smoke brought Jack to the present. The pistol in his hands went up in front of him as he scanned the room, only to find the extinguished candle as it ran out the rest of the wick. Melted wax poured down the sill and wall, stopping only as it barely reached the floor.

He lowered the pistol and switched the safety on before holstering it.

The rain came down harder. It startled him at first, but as the familiarity of the sound returned to him, he let it fill the room until he could start drowning in it. Rain was a good sign. It meant he could still make it home.

The front door swung open and slammed into the wall as a fierce gust blew into the cabin. Jack moved quickly to close the door as rain soaked the floor. In his caution to make sure no one had entered, it never occurred to him to lock the front door. He did the doorknob’s lock as well as the black iron deadbolt, and sighed at the muddy puddle. He switched on the lights in the sitting room and fetched a towel from the upstairs bathroom and used it to both clean, and use to set his boots on. The Staff Sergeant would have had a fit if he could see Jack wandering through the cabin without taking his shoes off. That was another thing about Romeo’s leader. He was Canadian, and more often than not, Canadian households had a societal rule to remove shoes once inside the home. Both the Staff Sergeant and Jack didn’t know why this was the case, it just was.

With the lights on, the cabin felt emptier than when it was dark, as the illuminated corners were now revealed to be truly empty, and that there was no one left inside. Jack went to the kitchen and opened up the walk-in fridge, hoping to find something to eat. But it occurred to him as he placed his hand on the door handle that he didn’t clear the fridge, and if someone was inside the cabin, the fridge was a good place to hide even if it was cold inside. He drew his weapon once more and flicked off the safety, and using his breaths as a countdown, he readied himself to breach.

3.

2.

1.

He opened the door and raised his weapon, only to recoil at the rancid smell inside. The thing about mould is that it smells like dirt, but sourer, and the smell coming out of the fridge was worse than that.

Rhodes and Horton were professional about things inside the fridge. Both were ex-chefs who signed up to the military once the call for fighters went out, and when the Staff Sergeant first invited Romeo to the cabin, the first thing they did was look over the kitchen. In many ways, the changes to the place were little pet projects. The walk-in fridge was especially a leftover of their restaurant days. All construction and renovation projects within the kitchen space was their responsibility. Meats were vacuum sealed and dated, kept on bottom shelves while sauces and vegetables occupied the higher ones. Dairy items were kept in the coldest part of the fridge, which so happened to be the farthest wall, and an icebox held any frozen items.

But as Jack stared at the state of everything inside, he was overcome with the urge to vomit. All of the vegetables were rotten and overgrown with white and green clumps of mould, and milk and cheese and whatever fridge stable dairy had soured beyond description. Venison, pork, beef, chicken, and any exotic meats that they had obtained from hunting had expired in their bags, which were now turning into small balloons as the rotting gasses filled the sealed vacuums.

The light in the fridge flickered, and for more than a brief moment, Jack saw a crumpled body in the back. Martinez. He was still in full combat gear, but his flesh was grey, bordering on black. A large path of blood was painted on the wall in an almost tree-like pattern, growing out of the back of his head.

Jack closed the fridge, took a couple breaths of clean, fresh air, and opened the fridge again.

Martinez’s body wasn’t there anymore, even if the rotting smell still was.

He closed the fridge for the last time and made a mental note to clean it out with HAZMAT gear. Jack’s hand shook as he holstered his weapon. He shook it out until he was stable again. Fatigue washed over him all at once, and even though he wanted to sleep and let the rain drown out his thoughts, he couldn’t find it in himself to give in. Sleep felt, undeserved.

Jack kept himself busy by wandering around the cabin. He laid in the bed, stretched out on the couch in the sitting area, even found and ate some canned beans from one of the cupboards in the kitchen. He lit the fireplace when the chill of the rain started to creep into the cabin, and when the heat flames filled the ground floor, he went to the window to watch the rain and nearly dropped his beans.

In the distance just behind the treeline, he saw a soldier. The rain painted the assault rifle in its hands and all its attachments into a glistening piece of black steel, and its face was obscured by a black mask covering its mouth and the four-eyed panoramic night vision goggles remained locked on Jack. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled, and a stone dropped into his stomach.

From deeper in the trees, three more soldiers emerged from the darkness, adorned in the same gear as the first. He stared at them for what felt like hours, and they stared back. His hand moved to his weapon, fingers slowly brushing over the textured grip, never breaking eye-contact with the soldiers.

Then they started moving.

Jack turned around and searched frantically for another way out of the cabin that wasn’t an obvious entry or exit. Maybe the second floor? But there weren’t any windows in the bedroom. Who didn’t have windows to the bedroom?! No, his answer was on the first floor.

As he stomped over the bearskin rug, he heard an echo to his step. He stomped again.

Beneath the rug, right in front of the fireplace, was a latch and a concealed trap door. When he opened it, a memory he would’ve liked to forget surfaced.

Before the West pulled out of Afghanistan, Romeo was dispatched by a CIA agent to find a particular person of interest. They codenamed him “Bingo” and all Romeo knew was that the agency, and therefore the United States government, wanted him dead. Bingo wasn’t Taliban, but was using Taliban contacts to hide himself in order to sell weapons of mass destruction, or at least that’s what the briefing said.

“Intel has him camping out in the mountains,” Jack remembered the agent saying. “You’ll land here”—the agent pointed to a spot to the left of a red X on a map of the region— “and you’ll proceed on foot to the cave where Bingo’s currently hiding. Once you get there, confirm Bingo is present, and proceed with the second stage.” Jack only caught a glimpse of Bingo’s photo during the briefing and though the details were a little fuzzy, he remembered the important ones. Caucasian male, late thirties, and a weapons smuggler. Someone almost like him.

They did as they were ordered, flying in the dead of night to a spot in the middle of the mountains, and hiking to a small cluster of trees on the side of a canyon. Daylight was approaching, and the Staff Sergeant was already scouting the area.

“Bingo confirmed,” he said. Rhodes asked if he was sure. The Staff Sergeant replied, “Pretty sure there aren’t many white boys in this area. Call it in.” The order to move out came in quickly, and Romeo approached the cave cautiously. There was no telling what was inside. As day broke, the fighting started. Gunfire peppered the ridge they were using for cover, and the chunking of Kalashnikovs echoed through the canyon. Romeo responded in kind, suppressed weapons sounding like spitting whispers as they found themselves biting off more than they could chew. Taliban were like ants, converging on the threat and no matter how many Jack put down, it felt like there were too many to deal with.

Somehow, they made it to the cave’s entrance, which was nothing but a series of sheet metal plates and plywood that didn’t look too dissimilar to a mound of garbage. Jack took point, and his teammates were behind him. Martinez was already working to tripwire the mouth of the cave for any Taliban or hired gun dumb enough to try and chase them in. Rhodes was at his back, and the Staff Sergeant behind her. Meanwhile, Lockheed and Horton were trading bullets with the flashes of gunfire up on the ridgeline across the canyon, but that didn’t matter to Jack in the moment. If there was someone on the other side, he’d be the first to get shot, and Romeo would be pincered. He placed one gloved hand on the loosest piece of rusty metal, and yanked it open.

The sound of garbled radio chatter snuck its way under the front door and through the window pane. Darkness was all that was below the floorboards of the cabin. All the times Jack had been in the room, he never knew about this secret. And now that he did, he wasn’t sure if he should go down. The garbling grew louder. He took a breath, and descended.

His footsteps echoed in the emptiness, bouncing off of walls and wooden support beams. He took quick but cautious steps as he looked for a place to hide. He placed his left hand on the nearest wall, and started following it. His legs collided into crates, an old wardrobe, and many other things disregarded in this place. The wall was cold, almost earthy in texture, like the secret basement went beyond the cabin property and into God only knows where. The darkness felt just like he remembered it, how it froze his lungs and closed around his heart. His footsteps were growing softer as the hard concrete turned into subterranean dirt. He didn’t realize it at first but he was at a corner, the wall’s slight curvature leading off to a path on the left.

He heard the garbling. It was quiet, but close. Jack readied his pistol, and though he couldn’t see, he could feel the safety already flicked off, the chamber loaded.

A small illuminated dot appeared on the far wall, bobbing slightly with intermittent breaks of rapidity, followed by slower bobbing. But it didn’t move. Jack reached out a hand to touch it when something caught his eye. A split-second glint of light bouncing off of something metallic.

The barrel of a gun.

Years of training emerged in a second. He grabbed the chassis of the weapon and pushed it to the ceiling. Several rounds hissed from the end of it as Jack rounded the corner in the dark, pushing his weapon in an uppercut motion before feeling the soft purchase of flesh. His finger squeezed the trigger five times.

Each bullet brought a small plume of gunpowder ignition, burning what Jack was seeing into his brain, like an old camera that relied on light exposure.

Four black eyes stared back at him with each bullet. He just killed one of the soldiers outside the cabin. Good, he thought as he lowered the body to the ground. He wrestled the rifle from the soldier’s grip and fumbled with the attachments. The laser was dual functioning, with a built-in flashlight. He switched it on and looked at who he just killed.

The soldier was American, or at least wore American colours. The inversed American flag was sewn into the sleeve, which was rolled up to the elbows to show off familiar tattoos of black skulls and flames. He carefully removed the helmet and mask and vomited after he did so.

Sitting in front of him was Martinez. His skin was so pale and dark it looked like clay. There were craters all over the top and back of his skull. Five of them. Four were in places where the helmet stopped the bullets from any further travel, but there was one near the base of Martinez’s skull. From there, a crimson tree grew out of his head and onto the wall behind him.

The sound of radio chatter grew louder in the tunnel Jack emerged from. He dropped the rifle and ran further from the sound as several cascades of footsteps grew louder.

The tunnel had to have an exit. Why else would the Staff Sergeant have dug it?

He felt the tunnel grow into a decline, the soft dirt turning into hardened rocks that pierced and cut the soles of his feet as he slid downwards, further into the cave. The footsteps and garbling were getting closer.

The back of his shoulder suddenly felt like it exploded, sending him reeling down the decline faster in a somersaulting tumble. It was a bullet no doubt. He felt blood pouring down his backside as he struggled to pick himself up and run.

He heard a distorted shout.

“GET BACK HERE. I’M NOT DONE WITH YOU.”

Jack ran as hard as he could. His feet were bleeding now too, and every step felt like he was stepping on burning coals and broken glass.

He stopped when he reached an open cavern. It wasn’t large, probably as big as the ground floor of a bungalow. The footsteps behind him were gone, disappeared, and he caught his breath. The blood still poured wildly from his shoulder, and he could feel something running rampant in his muscles. He groped around in the darkness, looking for a wall, but instead found a crate with a box of flares on top. He popped the top of the flare and struck it, the red glow illuminating the space around him.

Bodies lined the floor of the cavern. All of them looked like they had been killed recently, all with similar causes of death. From what Jack could see, many of them had bullet wounds in the shoulder and bloodied feet. What was strange was some of them had a mark on the back of their necks, like a birthmark or a scar. Each was identical to the last, and Jack subconsciously reached behind his neck, tracing bloodied fingers around the scar tissue from where Bingo tried to stab him.

At the other end of the cavern was the mouth to another tunnel, and as Jack worked his way towards it, tried his best not to pay attention to any of the growingly familiar bodies. He felt the starchy rustle of his favourite brand of denim as he stumbled over legs and heard the crinkling of wind breakers as his feet brushed past them. At the mouth to the cavern’s exit, he heard a familiar and calming sound.

He dropped the flare behind him and scrambled up an incline. He saw the same dark clouds in the sky, and the faint outline of the tops of trees that buckled and swayed under the wind he couldn’t hear. He scrambled faster. His hands were ragged, sore, cut, bleeding. He didn’t stop.

The air was cold, still, and heavy, but Jack gulped it in greedily anyways. He didn’t know where in the woods he was until he started walking. Familiar stones, pathways, and other random markings led him back to the dirt road he used to drive to the cabin. If he could make it to his car, he’d be able to get the hell out of this place.

As he trudged along the road, the tree next to him exploded as a bullet burrowed its way into the bark. The soldiers were behind him. He could see them moving through the trees as the first droplets of rain started to come down. He ducked and weaved through the trunks, outrunning the soldiers as they pursued him. He could see the end, almost feel his weight sinking into the seat of his car. But as he saw his vehicle, he saw the cabin, and a flickering candlelight in the window sill.

A hand grabbed him by the collar of his coat and shirt and threw him to the ground. Jack rolled over onto his back and looked up.

Four soldiers looked down at him, their goggles reflecting the fear and confusion in Jack’s face. Four barrels stared down at him, suppressors dripping with rain water and a fury so strong it held them still.

“Bingo,” one of the soldier’s garbled voices said.

Jack barely had enough time to draw his weapon as the soldier’s rifle hissed and a bullet lodged itself into his chest. One of the others grabbed Jack by his ankles and dragged him back the way they’d run from, no doubt to toss him down the hole he crawled out of.

“Bingo confirmed.” The small flickering light in the window went dark.

“You sure?” one of the other two soldiers asked.

“Pretty sure there aren’t many white boys in this area. Call it in.”