It’s taken me a while to come to terms with the details of this story…to decompartmentalize the details and reconcile that what happened wasn’t some fever dream .
From 2000 to 2004 I was enlisted in the United States Air Force. I’ll keep the duty station to myself and change the names of the airmen involved since I’m not sure what the rules and regulations for this type of thing are. Nevertheless, every base has stories, most of which made up to scare the newbies, or Jeeps. For the longest time, that’s what I thought that’s the story of the L.O.L.A. was, just something to get the hair on the back of the neck to stand. I was very wrong.
The L.O.L.A. was a Live Ordinance Loading Area, meaning it was a section where live missiles and bombs were loaded onto aircraft for real world missions. Most of the time there wasn’t anything there, separate of the 3 bunkers where munitions would be held on massive carts that reminded me of a type of scissor lift with rows of missiles left and right separated by a steel bar. Hell, most of the time there weren’t even aircraft in the area, but Security Forces still needed to have a 2 man post in the L.O.L.A. As such, most guys would try to trade the post since it was usually quite boring. I usually didn’t care where I was posted, it was more the who that was important, since I worked 12 hour midnight shifts starting at 18:00hrs.
One night I took a trade from one of the newer guys, Airman Davis. He was notorious for falling asleep on post, and didn’t much feel like being the butt of any pranks that night. I was supposed to be the supervisory partner in the base housing patrol that night, so I had come in early, since the post had an earlier start time. Davis came up to me looking a little sheepish. I rolled my eyes, I’ve never had much patience for timid people.
“What Davis?” My voice stern, but not unfriendly, though maybe a little rude since I didn’t give him the chance to initiate conversation.
“Hey Collins, would you swap with me tonight? I’m riding the L.O.L.A. tonight with Chapman and don’t really want to smear myself with shaving cream again.”
I chuckled, but looked at the young airman seriously. “Perhaps you should find a way to not be a lazy ass and actually stay awake on post.” I let him sweat for a bit before clapping him on the shoulder. “Yeah, since it’s Ralphie, I’ll swap. Sargeant Klein will be happy anyway, he hates when we’re partners.”
Airman Chapman, or Ralphie as we all called him, because of his uncanny resemblance to the character from A Christmas Story, was a perpetually chubby looking guy with ruddy cheeks and round framed glasses. Truly, he was my closest friend and the only one who understood that it didn’t matter my tone, if I was talking to you, then I liked you. Ralphie was all business, very strict about the job, which is why we got along so well, we didn’t tolerate bullshit. That’s also why sitting the L.O.L.A. that night would be a chance for us both to slack off a little. I knew there was nothing out there because I had just been the supervisor post the night before. I walked over Ralphie and gave him the news.
“Thank fuck man, I don’t think I could have lasted 3 nights in a row with that little shit. Sumbitch can’t keep his eyes open for shit.” We laughed and armed up, each with an M-16. We stood for roll call and the evening briefing, which usually was just nonsense or someone cracking jokes about our Flight Sergeant, a man who stuttered horribly around us, but was as smooth as Barry White when picking up women at the bar, and who was known by everyone to steal pens. After we were dismissed, Ralphie and I, two of the higher ranking airmen and next up for Sergeant promotions, kicked the younger guys off the first duty transport, partially to assert our rank, but also because the L.O.L.A. was furthest away from the armory, and it’s a dick move to make the previous shift wait for relief. We bitched about the broken radio in the pickup on the way out and discussed pro wrestling or something, Ralphie was basically in love with Stone Cold Steve Austin.
We reached the post and did the obligatory vehicle inspection and post transfer report from the morning shift. I didn’t really know morning shift guys too well, after all, we were as different as night and day. Ok, shitty joke. We accepted the vehicle, a slightly newer Ford Ranger with a semi-working radio, but this one at least had a CD player, and put our gear in the bed of the truck. I immediately unclipped my belt, letting my gear hang off of my shoulders by the strap and lot a cigarette. I offered one to Ralphie and we stood by the truck facing the L.O.L.A.
“Well Ralphie, left, right or middle tonight?”
Ralphie took a long drag and exhaled as he spoke. “Eeny, meeny, money, moe..middle. It’s closest to the shitter.”
I laughed and flicked the cherry off of my cigarette, twisting the end and saving the rest for later. I hopped in the truck and waited for my partner. We drove to the center bunker and backed in. Since there weren’t planes or munitions in place, no one would care. On top of that, we’re midnight guys, no one would even see. I turned off the truck and Ralphie looked at me. “Hey, I snuck my laptop in tonight, wanna watch Super Troopers?”
I had seen the movie dozens of times already, but it was a way to kill a couple hours, “Fuck yeah, start it up.” Ralphie hopped out and started the movie. We watched about half before he needed to piss. I got out of the truck to finish my cigarette from earlier.
While I was smoking, I kept hearing small sounds, like the footsteps of an animal, circling the bunker. When Ralphie got back In held my finger up to tell him to move slow and keep quiet then pointed to my ear. His movements slowed and he walked to the truck, his eyes darting left and right, he was hearing what I was. Each time his eyes moved left, I heard a sound to the left of him, same thing right. I pulled my cigarettes out and lit a fresh one, Ralphie grabbed one of his own.
“Probably just a coyote, they know we’re here and want food. I told that asshole Davis to not feed them. That kid is a dumbass.” It was at that point that I heard the footsteps change. They got heavier, like a human pacing, but grinding their heel or toe into the gravel as they stepped.
“What is that?” Ralphie asked.
I pointed above is, “I bet it’s the Lieutenant trying to sneak up on us, he probably thinks Davis is still on post. Maybe we should show brass how to sneak up on someone.”. Ralphie grinned and finished his cigarette. I motioned for him to go right and I went left, moving like we were tracking down an enemy. We each rounded the bunker and all we saw was each other. I stood up straight and furrowed my eyebrows, “What the fuck? There’s no way… c’mon let’s get back to the truck.”. We walked back around and there was the sound of a third set of footsteps pacing ours.
“Shit man, this is getting weird”, Ralphie said as we got back to the truck. I cleared my throat.
“Well, it’s time to patrol anyway, gotta do the midnight check. Wait? Midnight? No, we just got on shift an hour and a half ago, it should only be 8 at the latest. Heck your radio, get s time hack from control.”
Ralphie nodded and grabbed his radio, confirmed it was on and with power then called in “Control this is SRT-9”. No response. He tried again “Control, this is SRT-9”. He released the button and looked at me curiously. I reached in my picked and grabbed my cell phone, a Nokia 3310, which was the latest and greatest at the time. My battery was dead. “Shit, that’s not right, it had a full charge when I got to the armory, I know cuz I was gonna call my mom. Something’s not right man, we better get out of here and see if we can flag down SRT-10.”
Ralphie agreed and we hopped in the truck. I turned the key, and nothing. “God damnit, piece of shit, why do we get such trash equipment, I swear to Christ and the god of fuck.” As I was renting I kept trying and finally the engine roared to life, and with it the windshield wipers, radio at full blast playing nothing but white noise, and the emergency flashers. I looked at Ralphie, ready to congratulate him on a good prank, but stopped when I saw his face. His eyes were wide and he was shaking his head, but not looking at me. He was looking in front of the truck. I tracked his gaze and saw only the dust billowing in front of the headlights. Dust? No, mist.
It was then that the white noise broke, a soft feminine voice came through the speakers, she was sobbing. I listened close to hear what was being said.
“Why…why my babies. Why does Michael insist on taking my babies, and when I was overseas too? I’ll show him, he’ll see the pain he caused, he’s gonna have to live with this. Taking kids away from their mom…” Her voice was cut off and Ralphie gasped. I looked up and where the mist has been was a figure of a young woman, maybe 20 years old. She had tears steaming down her face, and she staring at us, no…at Ralphie.
“You took my babies from me!” She screamed. It was the. I noticed that in addition to tears, she had blood running down her face.
Ralphie reached over and put the truck into drive. “Drive asshole! Fucking drive!”. I put on the gas, driving through the figure of the young woman.
Ralphie and I never spoke of that night again or even for the rest of that night, and he would refuse to work the post and always traded. We never did find out the reason for the advancement of time, or why control wasn’t getting our signals, and had to settle for equipment malfunctions. I wasn’t so deterred. I wanted to know more, so I pretty much lived on the L.O.L.A. for the remaining 3 years, and did my own research.
In 1991, a young Security Forces Airman 1st Class was found dead by her relief post. She came home from a support station during Operation Desert Storm to find that her husband left and took their 2 young children with him. She didn’t know where he took them, and was understandably distraught. That night, she had all she could bear and placed her M-16 on burst and took 3 rounds to the chin. In her pocket they found a note saying “Michael took the kids, he took them from me, I can’t be without my babies. Michael did this.”. It was after her death that the posts were all transitioned to 2 man posts.
The young airman was 21 years old, her name was Lola Stevens. Her name was LOLA.