I was a Platoon Leader for Alpha Company of the 82nd Airborne Division. In 2019, I was deployed to Afghanistan for military operations against the Taliban. It wasn’t my first deployment so I didn’t think anything of it.
“Greene!” My company commander, Captain Forrester called over. “Yes Sir?” I responded back. “Meet me in my command tent, ASAP” He responded.
I didn’t think a lot of this. I was either being called in for a briefing of a mission we had to do or for sending an enlisted man home, but this was different. I walked into the command tent and my battalion commander, Colonel Gordons was there with Captain Forrester.
“Right,” Forrester started with the briefing. “Their is a squad of Taliban soldiers in the town of Pakita. They are holding the line for the rest of the Taliban army so they can re-supply on weapons, food, and other resources” Forrester said. “Your assignment is to either kill or make those sons of bitches leave Pakita.” Gordons said. “You are going to assemble a 10 man squad to carry out this mission. Choose wisely on who you want to go.” Gordons said. “Will do, sir.” I responded. “You’re dismissed, trucks leave for Pakita in 10 minutes.” Gordons said. I saluted Gordons and left the tent.
I now had to make a quick list of who I wanted to go with me. I was already thinking of names. “Dyceman, Rutherford, Martinez, Sutry, Boyd, Wilkes, Johnston, Dek, Santana, and Coleman.” I thought, then I decided that was my team. I reported to the barracks where my platoon was at. I briefed the men on the mission and they understood. These men were experienced and knew what to do, so I didn’t have to explain a lot. No Questions were asked so we were good to go.
When we got on the trucks, I was having a gut feeling that something wrong was going to happen but I just brushed it off as nervousness. We got to the town and it looked destroyed. Most of the buildings in the town looked abandoned. Some of the buildings were missing windows and the doors were missing. Some of the buildings were missing chunk of brick or whatever materiel they were built with. We were walking down the main road before we heard a scream coming from the building to the left of us. It was a horrific scream, something you would hear out of a horror movie when the killer would be chasing the victim. The scream sounded like it came from a middle aged man.
“What the fuck was that?” Martinez asked. It was a rhetorical question For the first time for some reason, I felt fear rushing through my body. “I don’t like the feeling of this.” Dek said. “Well, it’s our job to investigate it. Everyone, on me.” I said. I didn’t want to go into that building, but it was my job and I had to.
When we went into that building, the inside looked awful. The walls were almost torn down. The Furniture looked burnt and was also tossed around. There were also splatters of blood on some of the walls.
“Did we run into a Taliban execution?” Boyd asked. “No Clue.” I responded back.
The building was a one family home with a lot of bedrooms so I had no choice but to split the squad up to search the building.
“Alright, Dyceman, Sutry, Coleman, Boyd, and Johnston. Search the left side of the house, everyone else, on me.” I said back.
We split up when we went through the hallway. The hallway was dark and had no windows. There were pieces of debre and clothing on the ground. We saw a room to the right of us with the door wide open. I looked at Rutherford, who was behind me. He shook his head as to inform me we were good to breach. We breached, and what we saw still haunts me to this day. The Taliban soldiers that were here, were dead and in a pile. Almost all of them were missing limbs. It almost looked like a shark did this. I was now scared. I was frozen in place, not knowing what to do.
“Who the hell did this?” Santana asked. I was too scared to answer. “Sir?” Rutherford called over. Rutherford was standing next to the closet in the bedroom. I went over to Rutherford and saw what he was looking at. Written on the door, in blood, was a note. The note read the following.
“YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE, LEAVE NOW.”
A chill ran down my spine, I was now thinking of getting the hell out of there. I radioed over to Dyceman. “Dyceman, do you read?” No response. “Dyceman, do you read, over?” No response.
“We have to search for Dyceman and the rest of the squad.” I said to everyone. They all shook their head, saying they understood.
We left the room, now in the dark hallway again. As we were walking, I noticed a dark figure standing at the end of the hallway where us and Dyceman split up. It was at least 8 feet tall and had glowing yellow eyes
“US ARMY, SURRENDER IMMEDIATELY.” I yelled to the figure, aiming my weapon at it. It didn’t do anything except smile. You could see it’s white teeth in its long, fearing smile. It then disappeared.
What. The. Fuck. I thought to myself. I looked at the rest of the squad behind me. They were scared.
We kept walking down the hallway until we saw another figure. This time in Dyceman’s height.
“Dyceman!” I yelled over. He looked back at me. But something was strange. He didn’t say anything.
“That’s not Dyceman.” Santana whispered.
The figure started running towards us. “DYCEMAN, STOP!” I yelled. He didn’t stop. I shot him twice in the leg. He fell over. He was practically right infront of me.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?” Rutherford yelled.
Dyceman looked at us. His eyes were in the back of his head and he was pale.
“We are the reason you guys have nightmares at night. We are the reason your children can’t sleep at night alone. We are fea-“ I shot him in the head. He was dead. Me and the squad left the building and town. I reported what happened and was told to keep quiet about what happened. I don’t know what happened to Boyd and the others. But what I experienced will live with me forever.