From nowhere the man quickly approached the group. Calvin Blevins saw something. Quickly he trained his weapon and fired three shots in rapid succession. BAP-BAP-BAP! All three rounds had found their mark, center chest. The  man went down. “Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!” Blevins screamed as the other Marines scrambled for cover.

“What the Hell was that, Blevins?!” Sergeant Holloway screamed from behind the tree where he’d dived for cover.

“Suicider, Sarge! I saw the wires! He’s got something in his hand! I saw it, I saw it, Sarge, I saw the wires!”

No explosion followed. The Marines came out from cover and slowly approached the downed body of the young man who appeared to be no more than seventeen. Blevins reached the boy first and looked into his eyes. Eyes that, through their pain, were searching for an answer, why? Why?

Between foaming gurgles, the boy was trying to speak, “Ba….ba….ba…”. He died there in the dirt. Blevins could only stare as his last hope for life drained from the boy’s eyes.

Lying beside the young man was a broken Ipod. He’d only wanted some batteries.

“Holy, Fuck, Sarge. I just killed a kid!”

The suicide bombers were all but impossible to stop because everyone in Afghanistan looked like everyone else in Afghanistan. An all too common Al Qaeda or Taliban ploy was to have young men, mere boys really, strap on concealed dynamite, then walk up to a group of American soldiers on patrol and push a contact button that was wired through a small battery pack that was then linked to a blasting cap set in the explosives. Very primitive. Highly effective.

Recent attacks had yielded several dead Marines and many more wounded. Those on foot patrol were not only on edge, but wary of any civilians that acted the least bit suspicious. It was during a routine inspection of one of the villages that were strewn across the region that the incident happened.

Over and over the scene played through Calvin’s mind. He wasn’t much more than a kid, himself. He told himself over and over that it was an honest mistake. That it was an accident, but the self motivating talk did little good. Three weeks after the incident, Blevins’ tour in Afghanistan was over. He had fulfilled his duty to country. He was going home.

Still it ate at him. The gnawing guilt. Gnawing at him from the inside out. What tortured Calvin as much as the vision of the kid’s fear as the life drained from the young man’s eyes, were the piercing wails of his mother as she ran from her ram shackled house, realizing her oldest boy lay dead in the street.

Blevins had been to the debriefing just before his discharge. He’d been to the counseling and the therapy offered for PTSD by the VA. Everyone gets it, the PTSD, they said. Take these Meds they said. They will help they said. It will all fade in time they said. And it did to a point, but the visions of that day still haunted him at times. Calvin quit taking the medication after they made him feel so disconnected from reality. Fuck it. He was a Marine. He would man up and stick it out.

Some nights the boy would visit Calvin in his dreams. He’d almost expected as much, the visits. He would haunt someone too if he could, had they killed him for no reason. I just wanted some batteries, the bloodied boy would say as Calvin would sit straight up in bed. Eyes wide, sweat pouring, heart pounding. The dreams would reoccur, but less often as time passed.

Six months had gone by since ‘the incident’. Blevins was back in the hills of North Carolina where he had learned to shoot so well as a child. The last two months had been spent repairing an old tobacco barn that lay up on the hill at the far back corner of his folks property. He wasn’t sure what he would do with the barn when it was finished. Maybe repair trucks or work on motorcycles. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He only knew that he had to stay busy and there was no work in the area. There had been no work for a long time. No work was the reason he’d joined the Marines in the first place. Five years later and still no work. What a mess this country’s become, he would often think and just shake his head. What a shame.

The weather was slowly cooling as the leaves changed into their full dress of brilliant colors. It was hard not to marvel at the sight looking over the valley as the sun was setting over the far off mountains. God’s finest work, he thought as he turned his back on the scene and headed up toward the tobacco barn. Oddly, a front was moving in from the direction of the barn and heavy clouds were moving in. The forecast said rain. It was October 31, and he wanted to get the barn done before the cold days of winter set in.

Old friends had invited him to a big party in town, but Calvin declined. Things were different since he’d been back. Or maybe it was he that had changed. The old crowd always acted as if there wasn’t anything of substance going on in the rest of the world. There was a time when Calvin had felt the same, but now he knew better. Since his return it was hard not to notice the attitudes of the others. It was something he could only describe as American narcissism.

The cable had been buried and tied into the electric meter the week before. It was four hundred feet of hard digging that helped take his mind off of ‘the incident‘ and now he finally had some power to the barn. Calvin knew if he had lights, he could work into the night and not have to think about what had happened. It was already dark in the barn, but he closed the door to hold in the days heat and walked in the direction of one of the two main support posts some fifteen paces inside the doorway. Walking with hands in front, he felt for and found the post and knew the pull chain for the light was only five feet on the other side of the post just above eye level.

He pulled the chain and the next thing he saw startled him so bad he stumbled back and hit his shoulder and head on the corner of the support post. He sat there momentarily dazed, staring at the face of a young boy in a turban and Afghan clothes, the front of his shirt covered in blood. 

The boy spoke in perfect English with an Afghan accent

“Hello, Calvin. I have been waiting for you.”

For a moment Calvin thought this might be some cruel Halloween joke some friends had designed to punk him out. He closed his eyes and shook his head hard, wishing the vision to be gone, but when he opened his eyes the man child was still there, staring at him with those haunting dark eyes.

“It is funny. I could speak little English before I was dead. I only wanted some batteries and you killed me. Now I speak English quite well. Do you not agree?”

“You…you’re not real. They said something like this might happen.”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out an old Ipod and tossed it to the ground at Calvin’s feet. Reaching into another pocket, he pulled out a pack of Marlboros and brought one to his mouth.

“Your American cigarettes are quite good. Do you have a light, Calvin?”

“I… I don’t smoke.”

“Irony. Is this not a tobacco barn? No matter,” he took a puff on the cigarette and the end light itself. After a deep drag he slowly let out a cloud of blue smoke that filled the void under the dim canopied light.

“Ahhh, We love your American cigarettes in my country. Allow me. I am Kaleeb Akmad. How many have you killed with your American cigarettes, my friend? You American‘s seem quite good at killing for no purpose. This is a tobacco barn, is it not?”

“Well….yes, but we haven’t planted any tobacco in years,” Calvin suddenly wished he would have stayed on his medication as the doctor prescribed.

“No matter. It is not why I am here.”

Silence.

“Are you not curious as to why I am here in your barn, Calvin Blevins?”

Blevins couldn’t speak.

“Not curious? Then, I must tell you. You killed me and I cannot move on to the next life.”

“Th….that was an accident. I didn’t mean to…”

“I have three large holes in my chest, Calvin. Explain to me how that is an accident.”

You had….I thought you had… I thought you were a suicide bomber and you were going to kill me and my guys!”

“Another group of your soldiers had been to my village a week before. One gave me an Ipod with your American music on it. I needed batteries to hear your Red Hot Chili Peppers and you killed me.”

‘No! No, I…,”

“It does not matter, Calvin. I am dead. You will soon be dead, too.”

“Me? I haven’t done anything! I just do as I was trained! Th…that’s why.. that’s how…”

“Silence!”

“If you were trained to jump off a cliff, you would do it?!”

“NO, I…but…”

“You came to my country and killed me, Calvin. I am but a boy. I cannot move to the next life until you are also dead. These holes in my chest still pain me, Calvin. The pain will not die until you also die. Why should I suffer while you live a long and happy life?”

“But I’ve got things to do. I can’t die. I’ve got my whole life ahead of me!”

“I will haunt you, Calvin. Do I not appear in your dreams? You will have no peace. You will see me each time you sleep. I will ask you each time, why you should live while I am dead?”

“But I can’t!”

“You can and you will. It is the only way. I will drive you mad, Calvin. You will kill yourself this night. Or another. But make no mistake. You will die. It is the only way.”

I can’t kill myself. It would kill my Mother.”

“You think your Mother should suffer less than my own Mother?”

“No, I don’t mean that. Why are you doing this to me?”

“ I told you Calvin. I must move on to the next life. I can take you with me. We can be like brothers, you and I. I understand it is quite peaceful. It is the least you can do for killing me.”

“So….what. You expect me to hang myself or something? I won‘t do it!”

No, Calvin. You will make it look like an accident. There are many farm tools in this barn. Use your American ingenuity, Calvin. You will be buried as a hero.”

“I can’t…I won‘t!”

“But you must….You will do it.”

“I can’t.”

“You can, Calvin Blevins. And you will.”