Douglas Bunger's Blaze Of Glory

Chapter 4



 
 
 
    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.


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