Give Them a Voice

“It’s definitely authentic,” I said, trying to stoke the fires of enthusiasm in my voice. I’m pretty sure I failed.

“Are you sure?” Mason Dearborn asked. He squinted slightly in my direction, probably scrutinizing my lack of excitement. He wouldn’t be the first to question my hollow emotions. Ever since coming home from ‘Nam, I’ve felt like a lifeless shell moved along by the strings of life’s responsibilities.

“Yes, Mr. Dearborn,” I said. “It’s a genuine nine millimeter German Luger manufactured between 1930 and 1942. The fakes are usually missing the manufacturer’s mark on the barrel.” I pointed with a latex-covered finger at a small inlaid stamping in the metal.

The mark surprised me, having been there at all. The gun had seen better days. From what Mason told me, the gun was taken off of a dead German soldier near the end of World War II by Mason’s grandfather, who kept it hanging on his wall, not in a case, like most collectors. Spots of rust grew on random parts of the gun, decorating it like a leopard.

“Fantastic!” Mason shouted. 

“I’m afraid it’s not very valuable, sir,” I added. “These are more common than you think. They’re actually one of the more common trophies G.I.’s took home after the war. And, given its condition -”

“Oh, I’m not going to sell it, Mark,” my client said. “I just wanted to make sure it was the real deal, so I know what I have. I’m going to preserve this for generations to come.” He fished out a polished box with a glass lid from under the desk on which the Lugar laid.

“At least, you might want to try to buff out some of that rust. Otherwise, it-”

“Yes, this will look great on my office wall,” Mason admired his grandfather’s prize, unaware I had been speaking. I was reminded why I preferred firearms to people. It seemed my usefulness here had come to its fruition. 

It felt no different than my exceeding my usefulness on the other side of the world. I fought the invading thoughts of my treatment I received upon my return from the war. I envied Mason’s grandfather tremendously. Back in his time, no one would have called him a ‘baby-killer.’ I wondered if he had nightmares when he came back.

The ridicule and disrespect made the nightmares all the more terrible. I had no reprieve from my present reality. By day, I struggled with the paralyzing fear of seeing a Viet Cong with a rifle around every corner. By night, I made frequent visits to the very jungles I left six months ago. But it all felt so real, right down to the smell of the trees, the bark of gunfire, and the screams of my men.

The overwhelming pressures of earning a living, the nightmares, the constant paranoia, threatened to shred my sanity into rags. Shutting down everything - thoughts, emotions, compassion proved to be my only recourse to getting through the day.

“Mark, are you okay?” Mason asked, snapping me back to his office. I visibly jerked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. The Luger will look good on the, uh wall, sure,” I said. The room tilted at an odd angle and perspiration beaded on my forehead. The same skeptical look as before shone on my client’s face.

Mason took the gun, without a glove of course, and placed it in the red velvet-lined display box. A formed indentation in the center of the container fit the firearm perfectly. He slowly lowered the hinged lid of the case and it clicked.

The office door slammed shut by itself.

The sudden noise almost threw my heart out of my chest. What first felt like a cold sweat, I perceived the room’s temperature drop by around twenty degrees. Mason’s eyes widened and his hands rubbed together vigorously. He must have felt the temperature change too.

A rattling sound pined for my attention on the table. The box holding the Luger shook. It was as if it rode on the seat of a dirt bike traveling across rocky terrain. Mason reached for the box to keep it still. As soon as he touched it, all the lights went out. Moonlight poured from a window behind Mason’s desk, casting a slight blue glow. My eyes met my client’s, mirroring his astonished look.

What followed could surpass the terror of my nightmares. A low moan, barely perceivable at first, started from all over the room, with no obvious source. It was just there. The moan slowly raised in volume and in intensity. Within seconds, it crescendoed into a blasting wail filled with torment, longing, anger and pain. My ears throbbed with the shriek’s onslaught and I feared I would go insane if the din hadn’t ceased.

My client threw the gun box on the floor. The impact forced the case’s lid open, spilling the gun on the floor. As soon as the Lugar came out of the box, the noise stopped and the room’s lights came to life again.

“What the hell was that?” Mason asked, hugging himself either out of fright or trying to keep warm. I didn’t care which. 

“Whatever it was, I wouldn’t put the gun back in the box,” I said. What the hell, indeed? My heart raced. It felt good. I actually felt something. It wasn’t as much fear but more acute curiosity.

Despite my suggestion, though Mason probably didn’t hear me (again), my client picked up the box and the gun and laid them on the desk. He walked to the other side of the desk and a drawer groaned open. He returned after a moment with a large rubber band.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I already knew the answer, but I wanted to see if Mason would confess his own stupidity.

“Were you hurt, just now, Mark?” Mason asked, placing the Lugar back in its custom-made cushion. 

“No,” I said.

“Well, neither was I.”

“What’s your point?” I asked.

“My point is, whatever that… disturbance was, though strange and unnerving, it was still just noise. It didn’t hurt us. So, if I use this rubber band to keep the box shut, by showing it who’s boss, then I really don’t think whatever it is will keep up its little temper tantrum indefinitely.”

“Before you do that,” I said. “What else can you tell me about the gun and your grandfather? Did he tell you the story about how he got it?”

“No, he never said,” my client answered.

“Is there anything else about the gun and your grandfather you remember?” I asked.

“There was one time,” Mason started. “This was a few years ago. I remember I was visiting him here and I saw him in this office just talking.”

“Talking?” I asked.

“Yeah, but no one was in the room with him,” my client said. “He was talking like he was having a conversation. At the time, I figured it was the beginnings of dementia or something. And he was facing the same wall as the Luger while he spoke.”

Mason re-focused on the gun case. “Well,” he said. “I’m not going to let this stop me from protecting this little piece of family history.” He closed the case.

I felt the temperature drop again.

And, as before, the case violently danced all over the desk. 

“Oh, no you don’t,” Mason said, grabbing the gyrating container. Darkness immediately fell across the room, except for the streams of moonlight from one side of the room. He quickly wrapped the case with the rubber band he carried, wrestling as he did so, like invisible hands tried to wrench the box free from his grip. Mason placed the confined case back on the desk and it resumed its waltz over his desk, knocking his desk phone to the floor. 

My client crossed his arms with a smug expression on his face, thoroughly satisfied with himself. I stood in awe of my client’s arrogance, yet the rush of my own emotion distracted me enough from leveling him with an uppercut.

The room’s lights flashed on, then off, repeatedly. I couldn't find a pattern to it. Amidst the box’s tumbling, at first I didn’t hear words being spoken. After a few more cycles of light and darkness, I heard it between the container’s thumps: “Thunder.”

Over and over again, the work ‘thunder’ bellowed all around us. I looked at Mason to make sure it wasn’t he who uttered the word. His lips remained tight, in a worried mask at having done something terribly wrong.

“Thunder. Thunder.”

“THUNDER. THUNDER!”

A thought occurred to me, despite the sensory overload of the situation. I grabbed the bouncing case and ripped the rubber band in half. I plucked the Luger out of its coffin and the light show and words stopped again.

“What are you doing?” Mason asked.

It was my turn to ignore him. I gently placed the gun on the desk with as much reverence I could muster. “This is colonel Mark Tennison,” I said to no one in particular. “Of the Eighty-Third Infantry Unit of the United States Army. Identify yourself, soldier: state your name, rank and service number.”

Mason said nothing. We both stared at the gun, expecting the muzzle to form lips and start to speak to us or something. But nothing happened.

“Mark, how do you know this disturbance might be a military man?” Mason asked.

“When it said, ‘thunder,’” I answered. “That was the countersign word used in World War II during the Normandy invasion. Soldiers used it to identify friends from foes. It was like a passcode. It, or something, is identifying itself as a friend.” I looked at the gun again. “I hope.”

The lights blinked out again. The suddenness of the action gave me an exhilarating jolt. A small part of me told me I should be terrified out of my wits, but I ignored it. I hadn’t felt this wave of emotion for months. I wanted more. I secretly hoped the scream would return.

Near the door, a green glow, about the size of a baseball, pulsed, suspended in air. The room shimmered, like a small pond had sprouted on the floor, casting an eerie luminescence across the walls and ceiling. Then the glow took the form of a young man, probably not more than twenty-two, dressed in battle fatigues, wearing a WWII-era helmet. He saluted me.

I lifted my outstretched hand to my forehead. The action felt like trying to swim in wet concrete. I hadn’t saluted anyone in six months.

“Alfred Meyer,” the apparition said in a shallow tone. “Sergeant. 32-493-905. Sir.”

I dropped my hand, saying, “At ease, sergeant.” The young man folded his hands behind his back and his stance widened. Deep-set, dead eyes bore into my own, awaiting further instructions. I ran his service number in my head for a moment. The first two numbers signified where he was from. “Thirty-two?” I asked. “Whereabouts in New York, Meyer?”

“Brooklyn, sir,” the ghost replied. “Permission to speak freely, sir.”

“Granted.”

“Where’s Frank?”

Mason gasped. I turned toward him. “What?” I asked.

“Frank was my grandfather’s name,” Mason said.

“Frank is no longer with us, son,” I told the soldier.

His face remained stoic. “He was a good man,” he said after a moment. “He kept me - he kept us - good company.”

“Us?” Mason and I asked together. “How many more of you are there?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”

 “All those years, when I thought he was just talking to himself,” Mason said. “He was talking to them!” He turned to the soldier and asked, “How are you related to the gun?”

“The gun,” Alfred said. He dropped his head to regard the firearm.

“The gun took me. Took us. All of us,” he finally said.

I immediately felt pity for the spirit. Pity! Though an emotion no one wants to feel, the onslaught of pity quickened my heart. I marveled at my ability to feel anything.

Then sadness. Sadness for the senseless killing of millions in a war where rampant power went unchecked at the cost of brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers and children. And not just this war, but the whole damn concept that forces men to take up arms and kill their fellow man simply because they lived under a different flag.

And Meyer answered the call - as did however many other spirits who inhabited the pistol, as did the countless others who breathed their last in the fight for freedom, for hope, for what’s right. And whatever cruel fate imprisoned these souls in their enemy’s side arm, I could not venture to guess, but I knew it was time to set them free of their bondage.

“And you enjoyed Frank’s company, didn’t you, son?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. He gave us all a voice, a chance to tell him who we were and what we did. He made us feel like we mattered.”

I put the rest of the puzzle together in my head. “And putting the gun in the box would take that away from you, wouldn’t it, sergeant?”

That statement broke the stoic face and the spirit scowled. “Yes, sir,” he said.

I looked over at Mason. His expression was a torn mix of disappointment and respect. I knew he wanted to mount the gun within the box and show it off to his kids and friends. But, with the way he talked about his grandfather, he obviously showed respect for the kind of character a man had in order to travel halfway across the world and defend the cause of freedom by any means necessary.

“What was your grandfather’s rank, Mason?” I asked.

My client thought for a moment and replied, “I think he was a sergeant too.”

Just as I suspected. These soldiers were military men to the very end. They couldn’t move on, even if Frank would have told them to - because he was not a superior officer.

“Then it’s settled,” I said and straightened at attention. “Sergeant, your service and ultimate sacrifice shall forever put us in your debt. It’s time to move on, now, son.” I saluted the young ghost. He returned my gesture and I caught the slightest glimpse of a smile.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He then faded before his hand fell completely to his waist.

I addressed the apparent others next. “And the rest of you currently inhabiting this gun: please state your name, rank and service number so we can express our sincere thanks.”

The room shimmered again, bathed in a green light, and almost two dozen small spheres of light morphed into the images of servicemen - some short, some tall, all in fatigues and standing at attention. One by one, I saluted and listened to their names and addressed them with my utmost admiration and honor. I had Mason write down their names and ranks and where they were from so we would never forget. And, one by one, they blinked out into whatever next plane of existence that awaited them.

After the last soldier moved on and disappeared from view, the lights came on again and the room was thick with dead silence. I made Mason promise to keep the list of the firearm’s former occupants safe. He then mounted the gun, without the box, back onto the two hooks his grandfather had placed there some seventy years before. 

“Want an empty box?” he asked, picking up the mahogany container from the desk. The rough treatment from tonight’s activity left it’s corners cracked and chipped. There was even a small crack in the glass window on the lid.

We said our good-byes and, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I slept without having a nightmare. The next morning I awoke to a world that was new to me - one filled with color and opportunity. And I realized the existence of freedom will forever be tested in the fires of conflict, but, as long as bravery still occupied the hearts of men and women, then that freedom shall never disappear from the land.