Just Keep Moving

It was 3 AM when I received the phone call. The phone call that changed my life forever. I picked up the receiver.

“Do you know what time it is?” I said as I stretched my arm out to bring the clock closer.

Silence reined on the other side of the conversation. “It’s 3 AM…what the hell do you want?”

“Just keep moving,” a modulated voice said.

“Who is this?” I asked the receiver, but the line had already went dead.

Damn kids making prank calls again, I thought to myself. I rolled over with the phone still in my hand and went back to sleep.

The alarm clock woke me up two hours later. I could help but wake up seething. The damned kids calling me every week for shits and giggles had to stop. I didn’t serve 14 years in the service to be treated like a punk, and I’m sure in the hell not gonna take this shit from some kids.

I picked the phone up and dialed 69 (the code to call back the person who last called you). I smiled as I tapped the “Talk” button. *I’ll get you little bastards.

“I’m sorry but the number you have dialed is no longer in service. Announcement 1…3….1…”

I hung up the phone. Somehow the kids blocked the number…they’ll screw up one day and when they do I’ll get them for sure.

I flipped on the TV to distract me from the phone call. What I saw made me more scared than any time in the service.

This just in…Government officials are saying the biggest hack in history was done last night, releasing every agency’s list of service men and women across the country along with their ran, battle history, and last known address. The government is asking for anyone with any information to call them at…

“Fuck…”

I jumped off the bed as someone knocked on the door. I ran over to the gun cabinet and swung it open. With no kids around, I rarely locked it up, and had no trigger locks on any of the 4 shotguns and rifles.

I picked up the sawed-off shotgun and yelled out, “One second!”

As I started walking to the door, an envelope slid under it. There was one last knock before I heard heavy footsteps running down the hall.

I continued to walk cautiously toward the door. I looked down and the envelope read my name. I opened the door with the nose of the shotgun toward the middle of the door. The hallway was nearly empty. The only thing left was the puddle of water that was soaking into the floor.

I looked at the puddle and then back at the envelope. The envelope was soaking up the water faster than the carpet.

“Oh shit!”

I ran to the bathroom and closed the door just as the envelope exploded.

Ammonium nitrate, table salt, and zinc powder…the three things to act as an intense flame is all that is needed to trigger a small amount of explosive residue.

The flame died down within a few minutes and I was able to re-enter the smoke filled room. Just as the sprinklers in the motel kicked on. I grabbed my bug out bag and took off out the door and into the hallway.

I’ve got to keep moving.