It was a rainy morning and I was sitting on my couch drinking coffee and watching the news. I got up after I was done my coffee and went into the basement. I looked over and saw my gun case. I got thinking that I haven’t cleaned my 7.62 in a while so I cleaned it, then went back upstairs. I didn’t really know what it was wether it was because it was raining outside or just because it was a slow morning, I just didn’t have a good feeling. Then the phone rang, my wife Jessica was the closest to it so she said she would answer it. She was talking on it for about five minutes then I heard the click of it getting hung up. I went to go see what was wrong with jess because I heard crying in the other room. I asked her what was wrong. She said, “You were just drafted to go back to go on a mission in Alabama.” I just stood there then after a while I asked what my mission was going to be. She cried, “ There is a guy that is a military veteran named Jeff in the swamps of Alabama going around killing people, and they want you to go and kill him because you are one of the only expert snipers that aren’t in Iraq right now. They said you leave tomorrow morning at five.

It is four in the morning and I just got up to go to Alabama. I am packing all my clothes and I just got out my 7.62 which I just cleaned yesterday. Then I thought, this must be why I had a feeling to take it out and clean it yesterday. This is my favorite gun ever and I have had it since I was 30. I am 45 now so you could say I have had this gun forever. It is time to leave so I gave my wife a kiss and walked out the door.

I just took three flights from Alaska to Alabama and I am finally here. I’m not to thrilled, but I had to do this. My partner and spotter Billy picked me up in a Humvee at the landing strip where my plane landed. We had to drive through the swampiest place I have ever been. It smelled so bad in the swamp. It didn’t take all that long to get to the base but we are now here. The first Sergeant, named Greg, said to me that I was needed fifteen miles away in the swamp because they just found the guy we have been looking for.

As we got deeper into the swamp the smell of rotting vegetation got worse and worse. It got so bad that I was gaging in the Hummvee and all the windows were closed. When we got to the sniping place I could see that we were up on a hill and that I could see everything around me except behind me. In front of me there is a marshy place with a little spot of dry land. Behind us it was all trees. When I looked back I could see that we had just come through a goat path. All of a sudden me and my fellow sniper hear something moving down by a tree on the dry spot at the bottom of the hill. We got into place and got ready to shoot. I looked through my scope and saw a person but he looked fake. I told my partner to look at him and see if he looked fake to him too said yes he did look fake. We were both looking through our scopes when I felt a sharp pain in my back, and I just learned my lesson always watch my back.

I woke up in a van flying down the road. I had tape around my mouth, rope tied around my legs, and my hands tied behind my back. It took me a while to realize it but then it hit me, I was being kidnapped. I guess I was right the guy at the bottom of the hill was fake. He turned out to just be a dummy that distracted us so these guys could kidnap me and Billy. I really had an itch on my back so I tried all I could to scratch it but I just couldn’t. Apparently I was making a lot of noise because the guy or girl, I seriously couldn’t tell, anyway the thing in the front seat turned around and punched me in the face. And guess what I blacked out again. Also even if this person in the front seat was a girl she sure could hit like a guy.

I was guessing I was out for a while because I wasn’t in the van anymore. I was still tied up and on the ground now. I had to find a way to kill this guy before he killed me. All of a sudden a truck came flying around the corner in front of me and came to a screeching halt right in front of me. A guy stepped out. It was him, the one I was supposed to kill.

“Get up” he said to me.

So I got up. Then I got thinking. I haven’t seen anyone else here so If I kill this guy right now no one else is here at the moment to see it. That means I could so kill him, but I had to think of a plan first. I saw a stick off to my left leaning on a tree, if this guy would just leave for like five minutes I could get up and try to cut the duck tape around my hands with the bark on a tree. Then after I did that I would take the stick and whack this guy in the head!

“I actually think this plan is gonna work” I muttered to myself. Finally this guy turned around and started to walk away, so now is my chance I thought to myself. I wobbled over to the tree cut the tape around my hands on its bark, grabbed the stick then sat down where I was and put the stick behind my back. Then he came back around the corner. He turned around and I got up and whacked him in the head. He fell to the ground and his head was bleeding very badly. I looked to myself and was happy to see all my stuff was there. I called my Sergeant up on my radio and told him everything that happened.

I can’t believe it I had only been here three days and killed the murderer. When the sergeant had been here a month trying to find people to kill this guy. Another thing I couldn’t believe is that I just got one hundred thousand dollars. It was pretty amazing for three days work. My sergeant said that since my mission was done that I could leave whenever I want, so I was going to leave today.

I’m finally home and it smells like cinnamon. The cinnamon smell is way better than the smell of rotting leaves in the swamp. I walked into the kitchen and my wife is standing there with cake, a welcome back sign, and a check for a half million dollars. I dropped all my stuff and my mouth dropped wide open. I asked her how we got all that money and she said that it was from the army. They said it’s your paycheck for killing that guy.

“They also told me to tell you that you earned six hundred thousand overall, and that hundred thousand was the money they gave you up front and they wanted to surprise you with the half million,” she said.

“I made a reservation at that Chinese restaurant you like to eat at,” my wife said to me. We left to go eat at eight and the rest of the week was just like any other week in my life, boring.