He scrambled for better cover and that was when he was hit. One round tore cleanly through his left shoulder while the rest stitched his rib cage like red-hot needles. But he felt only the initial jolt; the rest was extinguished beneath a pounding wave of adrenaline. He fought for his balance, twisting sideways on unstable legs as another volley passed hotly by his cheek, their buzzing barely louder than the mosquitoes around them. His eyes, by instinct, pinpointed the patch of grayness out there where the muzzle had flashed. One handed, he trained his rifle on that spot and emptied his magazine into it before his brother had even arrived there.

Chris fell back on his butt, instinctively fumbling with the jungle clip on his rifle despite the cessation of enemy fire. It was several moments until the silence finally registered. He looked around him, found Alex still standing over the last kill, inspecting his handiwork. “You got ’em all, Hoss,” the ghost laughed, if a bit lifelessly. “I’ll give you credit. You’re better than I expected. Yessir, this might just work out after all.”

Chris squinted at his brother. “What? What might work?”

Alex turned and started toward him, his feet walking a good six inches above the mud, and as he grew closer he also began to fade. “Your men are coming,” he said as if from far off. “You’ll be okay.” Then he was gone.

If he had really been there at all.

Stiles blinked. What the hell had just happened? The pain from his shoulder and side was only now beginning to slip his defenses, an all-too-uncomfortable reality that made what had happened before it seem dreamlike. Alex hadn’t really been there, had he? He couldn’t have been, he was still back home in the states somewhere. There was no ghost. He’d just stumbled across a squad of ’Cong and time had slowed down like it does in battle sometimes and he’d just dreamed Alex up. Yeah, he’d just dreamed him. And once he got back home he’d look Alex up and they’d have a pretty good laugh over it.

But there was no laughing now. The pain was blinding. He climbed to his feet but staggered and collapsed and wasn’t even aware that someone had caught him until he heard Lieutenant Wilkerson’s voice, sounding far-off and hollow as if yelling across a public restroom. “Stiles? Can you hear me? You men, secure the area! You, get that corpsman up here!” He saw Briscoe and Osteen and Shelton fan out from behind the CO, as Turner stood watch with his necklace of belted brass and his M60 leveled at the hip.

Stiles’s eyes were so tired, too tired to keep open. Instead he just listened to the voices, distinct but distant, like a radio playing just in the background.

“How’s he doing?”

“Is the area clear?”