Chapter 1 – Fall 2024
Maggie
“Ten minutes till evac, Gallagher.” With a firm nod, he waits for me to respond.
“Can we get a little longer? I want to document this family . . . the home.”
Grey eyes tighten under an army helmet. Captain Fielder adjusts his rifle, before scanning the war-torn streets of the Ukrainian town along the eastern border.
One of the few abandoned smaller towns, not occupied. Still just as dangerous. The place is desolate.
The destruction is beyond anything I’ve seen before.
And I am here to document it. The six soldiers I came with have been part of the support from our country.
The helmet and khakis I was issued went from impeccable to filthy in a matter of days.
The bulletproof vest that covers my chest hides my press pass.
The only giveaway I’m not a soldier, excluding my lack of discipline, is the fact I don’t carry a weapon and the camera with its oversized lens hanging from my neck.
If images say a thousand words, the shots on this camera would tell stories to shock even the hardest of souls.
As they should.
The world needs to know what happens when wrong takes over right. We are blissfully unaware, going through the everyday motions. Sipping iced lattes and ducking into Walmart for just one more thing. Our first-world comforts are many.
If it isn’t seen, it doesn’t exist.
I will make it exist. Make people care.
Make a difference.
The entire reason I got into photojournalism in the first place.
A small hand tugs on my pants.
I look down to see brown eyes sunken into a filthy, small face.
A little girl. No older than six or seven, I assume. Although with the poverty the war has caused, she could be older.
I squat and hold both of her hands. “Hello.”
She mumbles something I don’t understand, but her face says it all. She’s scared. Hungry.
Hopeless.
I slide the granola bar I was saving for the ride home from my shirt pocket and place it in her hands. She nods, a wobbly smile exposing her missing teeth.
I stand and a hand grips my shoulder.
“Two minutes, Gallagher.”
The captain stands by me, always only a few feet away. Something about me being his responsibility. I’ve been with this team for almost a month, and they seem like a band of big brothers to me now.
“Any wriggle room in that, Cap? I need a few internal shots. Living conditions, etc.”
“Three minutes tops. We have incoming, and they ain’t friendly.”
I nod and walk into the nearest broken-down concrete home.
The curtains are shredded, blowing in the smoke-riddled breeze.
The floor is littered with rubble and broken household items. A woman is sweeping.
Her husband is trying to pack a few things into a bag as a small boy sits at his feet, chewing on what I think is some kind of dried meat.
Feeling like an intruder, I step back and knock on the internal wall by the door. “Hello.”
The woman looks up from her sweeping. Her gaze travels over my khaki uniform, and she offers a sad smile.
Too little, too late is what I imagine she is thinking right now.
The Canadian flag stitched to my shoulder gives away my country of origin, and I take a step forward pointing to the camera strapped around my neck.
Usually, I would have a translator.
On every other assignment, I’ve been allocated one. But we had to travel light. The danger level of going into a volatile place like this wasn’t exactly having volunteers sign up left, right, and center.
“No. No.” She holds her hand up.
No photos.
“Okay.” I nod, holding my hand up as I let the camera drop on its strap.
Her husband stands and walks to where I am situated inside their door.
He turns back, telling his wife something.
A moment later, the three of them walk out with one small suitcase. As he walks by me, the emotion and devastation in his eyes is one of the hardest things I’ve borne witness to. Without stopping, he utters, “Now, you take.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat.
Drawing in a breath, I raise the camera and capture the home, or what’s left of it.
On the floor where the boy was playing, a small rag doll lies on the floor.
Covered in dust, the small doll stares at the ravaged ceiling, streams of daylight spearing their way through the blast-torn outer shell of their home.
“Incoming!” Cap shouts from outside. “Gallagher, NOW!”
I swipe up the doll and run from the home.
Captain Fielder tucks me under his side as shots are fired.
He radios the pickup crew as we scramble through the rubble, the five soldiers who accompanied us on our flank returning fire.
My heart races, one hand gripping the doll and the other firmly around my camera as Cap shoves me from side to side, literally dodging bullets.
Metal reverberates off metal, and soft thuds tell me some are finding their mark in the vests we wear. We keep running.
When the gunfire dies down, we round the outskirts of the village and head for the drop zone. A Humvee waits, idling, for us. The back doors fly open as we approach. Cap all but throws me into the maw of the thing, then turns back.
“Faster, ladies!” he hollers.
The Humvee shudders with each soldier as they jump up into the back. One, two, three, four . . . Cap . . . five . . .
No.
“We’re missing Sommers!” Frantically pulling at my harness over my chest from behind the bench seat, I strain to see if he’s lagging behind.
Cap’s eyes find mine.
He shakes his head subtly.
Oh god.
Burn rises rapidly in my throat, and I lurch forward. Someone hands me a helmet and I lose my stomach to it. Wiping my mouth, I lift my gaze to Cap’s, searching.
“You just learned the value of a minute, Gallagher.”
A sob leaves my throat.
This is all my fault.
The Humvee jerks forward and we are rolling over the rough terrain a moment later.
“I-I’m sorry.”
Cap’s jaw tenses before he rubs a hand over his chin. “Don’t be sorry, Maggie. Make a difference.”
Hot tears stream down my face like his words tugged at my heart till it burst, setting free a damn of salty emotion I have no hope of staving off.
I snap my focus forward, imitating the posture of the soldiers around me. If they are upset, they don’t show it.
We head southwest, back to friendly territory. The small space in the back of the army-issued soldier transport vehicle is tight. The tension even more so than before we spent twenty minutes in a tiny little ghost town.
The radio squeals in the cabin and the driver responds.
A beat of silence and . . .
BOOM.
The Humvee flips into the air.
Cap’s eyes meet mine. The intensity tells me all I need to know.
Oh fuck.
Flames engulf the vehicle before the next heartbeat.