The next morning, Brad hit the streets like a man
obsessed. He was no longer chasing a wild goose or a dog of
a story, but was, instead, after his Pultizer Prize. He
knew that if he could find the mysterious Sergeant Gatewood
and elicit some information that even slightly resembled the
truth, he would be able to start the fire that was sure to
burn the United States Air Force at the cross.
He'd taken a few minutes the night before to
familiarize himself with the Air Force by reading an article
in his encyclopedia. The book had given a history of how
the Air Force had sprung from the post World War II Army Air
Force as its own service, and how it has grown and evolved
over the years since. For Brad's purpose, that information
was potentially useless, but later in the article there were
a few details that caught his interest.
The first of these was a small map of the world that
displayed the location of several major bases and their
purposes. He studied the map closely and finally located
Nellis Air Force Base outside Las Vegas, Nevada. The
parenthetical note below the name indicated that Nellis was
principally a TAC base. Brad cross-referenced this with the
list of divisions within the Air Force that were known as
'commands,' and found this to mean Tactical Air Command.
The paragraph went on to explain that the Tactical Air
Command was responsible for operations such as close air
support for ground troops with attack aircraft, control of
the sky over the battle area with fighter aircraft, and the
destruction of local enemy targets with their small,
tactical bombers.
The second piece of information that Brad thought might
come in handy was a chart that showed each of the Air
Force's rank insignia, and the title associated with it.
Next to the rank with five stripes similar to those worn by
Sgt. Gatewood, was the title "Technical Sergeant." The text
explained that the term technical did not actually describe
the sergeant's expertise, but was a throw-back to a World
War II era rank. Each of the services had a five-stripe
sergeant, each of which were the same rank, so to
distinguish the individual as Air Force, the term was
honorably bestowed. The Air Force thought it was an apt
term on the grounds that their people were more skilled
because they serviced and operated highly sophisticated
aircraft, yet a Technical Sergeant in Air Force logistics is
no better trained or qualified than a Sergeant First Class
in Army supply.
Brad started his search in the neighborhood where he
had met Gatewood the day before. He took great care to
dress similar to his previous days attire, hoping that the
street people would recognize him as the man who had fed
them. As he walked around the block, he asked people if
they had seen the guy in the Air Force jacket, but had no
luck.
After nearly an hour of looking and asking, Brad had
covered several miles of pavement. He would complete a
block then take a cross street to the next block to make
sure that he never covered the same stretch of street twice.
His feet were beginning to hurt, and he was about to give up
hope, when he looked down the street and saw a fatigue clad
individual walking toward him. At that moment Brad knew
that it had to be a sign-- a sign that he was meant to blow
the lid off this story. Of the countless of hundreds
blocks, of thousands of miles of area, Brad had lucked upon
Sergeant Gatewood a second time. Brad made a mental note to
thank the Holy God of Truth and Journalism next time he had
a free moment.
Brad stood and watched Gatewood walk and observed that
the man seemed to be walking in a trance. He moved forward
with no regard for other pedestrians, obstacles, or traffic.
He starred blankly into the space before him and set his
feet on the ground, one after the other in a never-ending
cycle without any purpose. His gait wasn't that of a man
intent on punctuality. It wasn't as if he were leisurely
strolling through the neighborhood. It was as if he were
walking simply to be walking, each foot falling to the
ground, plodding across the pavement, mindlessly following a
long lost order that had been sent by his brain several
hours ago. As Gatewood walked past, Brad said hello, but
his words didn't even break the man's stride.
"Gatewood!" called Brad as he ran after the man.
"Gatewood, don't you remember me?"
Technical Sergeant Gatewood continued his fast pace,
not letting up for an instant. He acted as if he were
completely oblivious to Brad's presence, until something
happened. For a brief moment the chemicals that controlled
the nerves in Gatewood's brain functioned, and he stopped.
He turned to look at Brad with an inquisitive look on his
face. "Which one are you? Roger or Wilco?"
"No, Sgt. Gatewood, it's Brad Dartmouth. I gave you
lunch yesterday."
Gatewood stood and stared at Brad with dark, empty
eyes. "Got to keep moving." He resumed his nearly double-
time pace, and Brad chased after him. "Got to keep moving
so they won't get me. The birds can't follow you.
Theycan't see you as well if you're moving."
"It's okay, I'm going to help you. They won't try to
get you while I'm here," explained Brad desperately.
"You can't stop them, they're from outer space. Even
the birds aren't safe from them. You can't stop them. Even
if they don't find you, the Air Force will. They'll find
you and give you to them. They'll put you in a flying
saucer and you'll be gone... forever."
"No, listen to me. You said you can see them. You
said that everyone else thought they were invisible, but you
could see them. Isn't that right, Gatewood? The aliens are
invisible?"
Gatewood stopped again as he thought; it was almost as
if only one end of his body could work at a time: it was
either walk or think. Brad had hoped to re-establish some
kind of rapport with the man by humoring him. Obviously
Gatewood was listening-- if Brad could get him to think
straight for just five minutes, it might make all the
difference in the world. As suddenly as he had stopped,
Gatewood started walking again. "The aliens aren't
invisible; everybody can see them."
"Then the birds are invisible?"
"You can't see the birds because they live in space.
The aliens could see the birds. They'd ride their flying
saucers, but fly off to the stars. It's the Goblins that
are invisible. I could see them. They weren't invisible to
me. I could hear them, too."
"What did they sound like?" asked Brad.
"WHOOSH!" screamed Gatewood, as he swung his hand in
front of Brad's face. "Sometimes there'd be three or four
of them together."
"Aliens?"
"No, Goblins. They only made sound when they flew by."
"What did the aliens sound like when they flew by?"
"The aliens didn't make any sound when they flew, they
only made sounds when they talked, but they spoke in your
head. You couldn't record their voice, because they didn't
make sound... they talked in your head."
Once the man had begun his rantings, Brad figured that
he must be a little more relaxed. "Sgt. Gatewood, what's
your first name?"
"Sergeant," answered the man.
Brad rolled his eyes in frustration. He was beginning
to see why it was hard to cure crazy people, and wondered
where psychiatrists found their patience. How could he make
the man understand what he was trying to say? How could he
break through the hallucinations and get the basic
information he needed to investigate the story?
That's when Brad noticed the ring on Gatewood's left
hand. "Think, Gatewood... What does your wife call you?"
Brad instantly realized he'd made a mistake. Gatewood
stopped dead in his tracks. His posture straightened, his
chest inflated, and the man's previously unobtrusive figure
was transformed into that of proud man who was ready to
fight. He stood motionless, a good four inches taller than
Brad, and looked down on the reporter. "My wife calls me
nothing-- anymore. The aliens have her now." Brad for the
first time began to seriously worry for his safety. He
wondered if Gatewood might explode into an uncontrollable
rage. "They gave her to them. My wife, my children...
gone." The man slowly shrank to his former self, and his
voice trailed off to a barely audible whisper. "The Air
Force took them."
Brad was so stunned by Gatewood's reaction, that when
he started walking again, Brad almost didn't realize it.
"I'm sorry," he stated sympathetically, thinking the whole
time how crazy the man was. "I didn't know they got your
wife. What did she call you?"
The feet moved, the eyes stared, and a mechanical voice
inside the shell of Gatewood's body answered. "Bob."
"Bob, how long have you been out of the Air Force?"
"About a year, maybe two weeks, give or take a month."
Brad ignored the response and immediately fired off
another question. "What did you do in the Air Force?"
"What did I do? I communicated."
"With the aliens?"
"Yes."
"And the space birds?"
"Yes."
"And the Goblins?"
"No, the Goblins communicated with each other. I fixed
their radios."
Goblins were something that Brad had stopped worrying
about around twenty years ago, so he couldn't say he knew a
lot about how they communicated. One thing he did know, was
that if there were ghosts, they didn't need radios. That's
when Brad first realized that the Goblins weren't actually
goblins, but a code word or acronym for a project. But,
what about 'bird' and 'alien?' Could they have been code
names? Certainly not alien, Gatewood had mentioned flying
saucers just a moment earlier. He had also said they were
from outer space. Alien could only mean one thing.
"Bob, I've got an idea," stated Brad as he withdrew his
steno pad and pencil from his jacket. "If you'll draw me a
picture of one of the aliens, I'll have my friends watch out
for them. If we see them, we'll warn you." He offered his
pad to the still moving sergeant.
Gatewood stopped. "The birds will see you watching...
The birds see everything." He took the pad and pencil, and
began sketching madly. He stopped, and offered the pad back
to Brad.
Brad looked at the picture curiously for a moment.
"One more thing, Bob. You say the aliens live at Nellis
AFB. If they live at Nellis, and they're not invisible, why
don't other people see them?"
Sgt. Gatewood looked dumbly into space. "They don't
live on the base, they live in the dessert. We lived in the
bomb range, near Alamo." With that, Gatewood started
walking once again.
Brad watched the man drag himself down the road, but
did not follow this time. He looked at the picture the man
had drawn, and wondered why it seemed so unusually bizarre,
yet familiar. There was something about the creature
Gatewood had drawn that reminded Brad of a movie or TV show
he'd seen, but he couldn't quite get it. Then again, maybe
Gatewood had made it up. After all, he was crazy. He
thought his wife had been abducted by flying saucers. He
was seeing things that were supposedly invisible. He
thought birds from space were watching him. Maybe Gatewood
made the whole thing up, and Brad was chasing a wild goose.
After all, the Alamo was in Texas, and Nellis AFB was in
Nevada-- the two states didn't even touch.
With a twist of his wrist, Brad flipped the steno pad
shut, and started back to his car.
|
Go to Story Index |
Email Douglas Bunger | Go to Home Page |
Go to Next Chapter |