The air in the Navy Exchange, which seconds before had been filled with Lieutenant Commander Price’s booming arrogance, suddenly seemed to vacuum into…
The Barracks and the Ghost The officer’s barracks, Complex C, was all red brick and manicured landscaping, a perfect picture of military order…
The 38-Second Cold Test I carry my tray like I have all day. Commander Mara Quinn, a name that sounds like a…
A Cold Tuesday Morning at the Navy Exchange The Navy Exchange on a Tuesday is the definition of mundane. It smells faintly…
Part 1: The Geography of Pain The gate at Fort Kessler, Wyoming, emerged from the high-desert haze like a forced hallucination. I…
I sat there in the cool morning air, the metal chair hard beneath me. My breakfast was a cold, congealed mess. The coffee…
Interrogation Room 3 was a concrete box. Ten by ten. Beige walls, scuffed with the ghosts of a thousand other interrogations. A metal…
It was late spring when the sky over downtown went peculiar—the color of wet slate pressed against glass. My team’s afternoon meeting canceled…
The air changed before the sound did. It was a pressure drop, a sudden, heavy blanket of static that made the hairs on…
The first thing I felt that morning was the cold. Not the wind, but the fabric. A thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheet against my…