STATEMENT GIVEN BY PVT.
(NAME CENSORED)
SOLDIER IN CHARGE OF DRIVING
MILITARY TRANSPORT TO
Los Angeles, California
ON (DATE CENSORED)

I was part of the final team that arrived in Searchlight the night of the desert panic. I was briefed on the chopper ride. My superior told our team before he even began that he would only tell us this once, he wouldn't answer any questions, especially not "Is this for real?" because he's only telling us what he's been told. I guess I was pretty afraid because of everything we had been told about some monster in a desert cave eating pregnant ladies and spelunkers. No one mentions this kind of thing when you enlist. Not that it matters.

I hardly had a chance to get a grip on all the nonsense before they were bringing that gurney up out of the cave. I feel like I'm in the middle of the biggest mess since Iraq in that square mile of sand. It's a complete circus. All kids of hippies and media jackals and cops and soldiers and this giant orifice in the sand. Surrounding the orifice, a speculum with industrial components drawing the gurney from within. And, when the fading sunlight finally creeps over the gurney, a monster.

Part of our orders involved crowd control and preventing further animal attacks, but we've been kept in the dark to a certain extent. It seems to me Uncle Sam wants that monster under his microscope before he wants some tumbleweed redneck in Nevada alive and well. No one mentioned monster-saurus, and I'm edgy enough to fire at anything that moves. Lieutenant yells in my ear to calm down or else and don't be so jumpy for God's sake. Nothing prepares me for that monster breaking those restraints, and I swear I would have given it a head wound to match the other one had I not been crippled with fear. The things that came out of its mouth... the things it had to say.

I'm feeling like a wet noodle when a Sergeant assigns me the task of driving the rig containing the animal to Los Angeles. The lieutenant warns the sergeant that I seem a bit out of sorts, and the sergeant says he doesn't care if I'm out of sorts, out of tokens, out of my head or whatever, just drive the transport and get it there in one piece or else.

Two other privates, armed and sweating under their fatigues, file into the front of the vehicle beside me, and no one says a word. We're sandwiched between two other armored jeeps and a whole barrage of cop cars. The chopper overhead hovering like a sentinel in the night sky.

We're told that the animal has volunteered to be restrained, but I see little point to this remembering how easily he tore himself free of the gurney when everyone said he was dead. The convoy is one hour into the four-hour journey when the animal starts talking to us.

The armed soldiers jump forward in their seats, and I have to scream for them to be careful with their dang rifles. The voice that gave them such a start is smooth and simultaneously gravely, like mud and rocks. Something very pleasant about it and something very wrong; I can't decide which presence is more forthcoming.

"Beautiful night" is what it says.

The soldiers, after gathering themselves, look at me as if the decision to respond or ignore rests upon my shoulders. I keep looking at them for small instants, then back at the road. The chopper keeping its thundering vigil overhead, we hardly feel alone. But in this vehicle with this thing in the back, we feel completely helpless.

"They don't teach etiquette in the military? Just give out cool haircuts?" the voice behind us asks. A moment of silence passes, and it laughs to itself then grumbles something about the back of the transport smelling funny and falls silent again.

No one speaks for fear of the animal reacting to our voices, and the seconds drone on like hours. When I'm convinced the rest of the trip might remain silent, the animal starts to sing "Hooray For Hollywood."

The two soldiers and I all jump this time, and I almost run the transport off the road. My arms are tingling while I try to correct the vehicle's path and keep it from flipping over in the ditch.

"Hooray for Hollywood!" It sings jovially. "That phoney super-Coney Hollywood!"

"Maybe we should pull over," the private to my immediate right suggests.

"They come from Chillicothes and Paduchas with their bazookas..." It sings.

"And do what?" I ask, trying to talk over the creature's rising voice.

"To get their names up in lights... "

"Get some help," the other soldier bumbles.

"I have orders to drive this thing to LA."

"All armed with photos from local rotos..."

"Just a few more hours!" I yell, insisting I can ignore this thing. "Just a few more hours!"

"With their hair in ribbon and legs in tights!"

When it finishes the other three verses, it goes on whistling the melody for the remainder of the drive. No one else speaks the entire time.