On top of everything else, we also needed to mount a guard at the front of the hospital, just in case those two crooked Guardsmen and the last of the infiltrators tried to come in and hit us from behind.
“Sally, can you set up a hardpoint here? Defend the entry in case we have unwanted visitors,” I asked, not bothering to use the radio since she was standing right here.
“On it. Paulson, you want to stick with me and make sure we don’t get flanked?”
“I…we are supposed to guard the pharmacy, Sally. That’s what Julie told us to do.”
“Yep, and if the raiders get in behind us, we are all going to die. Let’s get this desk moved while you finish explaining your orders.”
Sally gave me a wink as I went by, joined by Hamlin and Aranda as we hustled Larry out the back of the ER, forgoing the gurney for a stretcher instead. We dropped Larry where Wade was waiting for us with Brandon and his wife. Aware the clock was still ticking, I hustled off behind the two Jasper deputies, plunging deeper into the corridors of the hospital. We need to get to that corner first, and I strained my old body into a fast shuffle as I bent down to make a smaller target as the three of us strained to cover the ground quicker.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Deputy Dean Hamlin was fast, despite his fireplug appearance, and he reached the ceramic-tiled corner a full five steps before I did, with Deputy Aranda a close third. Since Deputy Hamlin was leading, that meant he got the lion’s share of buckshot as one of the raiders popped around the corner with a shotgun raised to his shoulder. The barrel blossomed with a flash of burnt powder, and the hall exploded into chaos.
“Fuck!” I screamed as buckshot tore into the ceramic tile of the wall next to my head, peppering my face with razor sharp shards that slashed at my exposed flesh. I reacted instinctively, triggering the M4 in my hands as rounds stitched the raider across his body armor until the last two wrecked the flesh of his upper chest and throat. A blossom of arterial blood geysered as the shotgun fell with an unheard clatter and spastic fingers clutched at the terrible wounds.
I kicked away from the wall as the body tumbled, and I arrowed around the corner in a slide across linoleum slicked with fresh blood. It was a stupid, reckless move, and I was regretting the foolishness of giving in to my adrenaline-fueled burst of insanity.
I was committed, though, and resolved to make the best of it as I jolted into the unforgiving floor. I emptied the rest of my magazine in a wild arc as the fully automatic spray of bullets hit the walls, ceiling, and bodies gathered around the door to the pharmacy, just a few hundred feet from where I lay.
I couldn’t get an accurate count, other than ‘oh, crap, that’s a bunch,’ as I tried to crawfish my way back to the shelter of the corner where the dead shotgunner lay. Yep, I thought, this is where my luck runs out. Then I heard shots coming from the corner behind me and impacting into the still-confused raiders. This bought me a few blessed seconds to recover and I picked up the pace of my retreat.
As I was still scrambling back to the shelter of the intersection, a thought ran through my shock-addled brain as the firing from the raiders began to pick back up. I reached down, fumbling for an object on the floor, and then I called out, “Frag out!” and flipped my hand in a sideways throw as I dove forward.
That caused a reaction, and the screams down the hall started up again as already disorganized raiders started hunting for cover in the wide-open hall. A saw shoulders being applied to doors as frantic raiders sought shelter from another blast. Nobody wanted to stand around if some idiot was going to play with grenades.
In that heartbeat of confusion, I fumbled a fresh magazine into place and I scrambled to my knees and fell back towards the cover fire being delivered by Deputy Aranda. I released the forward grip on the AR with my left hand, weapon extended to the limit of the sling, as I fired off another magazine while trying to maneuver the corpse of the shotgunner into a meat barricade I could collapse behind. In this funnel formed by the hallway, I wasn’t worried about accurate fire, and focused on simply unleashing rounds in the correct direction.
“What happened?” I heard Aranda scream out, but I ignored him as I dropped another magazine and finally started to aim my shots. I hated laying prone like a dummy, but I hated the idea of getting shot in the ass even more, so I focused on the sight picture and began punching holes in targets. Despite my earlier indiscriminate assault on the overhead lights, enough illumination remained to allow me take accurate head shots, but the deputy covering me quickly racked up an impressive toll. Aranda, stuck with a semi-automatic rifle, made his shots count, and soon we were left with nothing but the writhing bodies scattered across the hall. Resisting my initial urge, I left them alone for now.
It was during that brief lull that I caught a flicker of movement about half-way down the hall, and the heavy steel door of the security room cracked open. Unfortunately for the person inside, the hinges mounted on the door meant it swung open in our direction. I came up to one knee, my rifle ready, and I froze.
Maybe it was Deputy Willis, coming out to help us. Maybe it was Corporal Cansler, doing the same thing. I still had no concrete proof the National Guard soldiers were working against us, and PFC Williams and his buddy Ridgeway might be dead out at the front gate. The same with PFC Reisinger, who was assigned to guard the loading dock. I had built a lot of assumptions out of not much proof, and now I was suddenly confronted by the idea that I’d screwed up something along the way.
I hesitated, so I took his first shot center mass when he came out shooting. It was Deputy Willis. His other bullets whizzed wide left as he jerked the trigger.
Damn, I hissed as the bullet slammed into my trauma plate, sending me sprawling onto my back. I squirmed like a flipped turtle, just in time to see the follow up. Deputy Aranda, finally picking up the motion of the door, squeezed off a round that ripped out the side of the other deputy’s neck in a shower of blood and tissue. Willis dropped back into the security room as his rifle clattered to the floor.
My ears ringing, and my chest feeling crushed, I flopped back around to assume my prone shooting position. Just then, I heard firing behind us, back towards the ER. That’s when I thought about Hamlin.
“How’s Dean?” I croaked, intentionally using his first name. We weren’t friends, but on the same side, and I figured the news wouldn’t be good. I was right.
“He’s gone, bro. How are you?” Deputy Aranda asked in a dull tone. Or maybe it was just my ears.
“Hit the chicken plate, so hurting like crazy but still alive. Never gets any better.”
“That wasn’t the first time?” Aranda asked incredulously.
“First was a pistol round. Still knocked me on my ass. This was worse,” I explained, then risked a glance over the deputy’s shoulder as another burst of fire erupted to our rear. “Think we can hold here?”
“With the two of us, yeah,” Aranda agreed. “Not alone. They still got too many shooters. That…that was Willis, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, and dude, that wasn’t a blue on blue,” I reassured him, knowing that Aranda had killed Willis out of instinct, not calculation. “I saw him staring right at me when he fired. Thanks. You saved my life there.”
I paused, firing a pair of shots at a shadow down the hall that moved. Or I thought it did, anyway. Even the light recoil of the M4 against my shoulder made my chest flare with pain, but now wasn’t the time to baby the injury.
“He knew what he was doing,” I continued as if nothing had happened. “Either he was in it with Cansler and they had a falling out, or, well, hell, I don’t know. But I checked fire, and he still tried to take me out. Would have gotten me with his next burst if you hadn’t saved my ass.”
Aranda grunted, and then we both jerked at the sudden burst of sustained firing coming from the emergency room. It sounded like 5.56, but going cyclic. I thought of the M249 carried by two of the National Guardsmen, and my worry for Sally spiked.
The short deputy reached out
and tapped my shoulder as I flinched.
“She’s got Johnny Paulson with her, snake. He’s solid. That Sally is pretty hardcore, too. We need to do our jobs here.”
I sighed. I remembered my radio then, and wondered why I wasn’t receiving any chatter from Sally or Wade. Then I reached up, and found the earpiece out of place, hanging from the cord. I plugged it back in, but I still heard nothing. Thumbing the PTT button, I rasped out a quick message to my two friends.
“Got them bottled up here at the corner. One friendly KIA. How goes?”
I got nothing but silence back, and then things picked up as movement started back up at the other end of the hall, punctuated by a sustained burst of fire tearing in our direction. Then another, and a third. I worried they were giving an assault team cover fire to charge our position.
Bullets sprang off the scarred floor around me, and I quickly realized this was the wrong place to be. I retreated back around the corner, sliding on my knee pads, and Deputy Aranda pulled back so only the barrel of his rifle broke the plane of the hall. Repositioning on the floor again, I raised up and, extending the M4 around the corner, dumped the rest of my magazine at ankle to waist high. Then I swapped out for a fresh one, and I repeated the process. The sound of the carbine going cyclic as I kept the trigger back canceled out any chance of hearing the attackers, but I wanted to make their reception as hot as possible. This was purely defensive fire, and I kept waiting for the rush to come.
“They’re pulling back,” Aranda finally barked, and he leaned out just a fraction further and started firing as fast as he could squeeze the trigger. Then I heard him grunt, and this was different from his earlier aggressive expressions. It sounded more like he’d caught a baseball bat to his abdomen. Or a bullet.
Deputy Aranda slumped back, and I stopped firing, trying to see where he was wounded.
“No, keep hitting them,” he managed to grind out the words even over his own pain. “Gotta keep up the pressure.”
I knew he was right, but I worried that he would bleed out before help could arrive. I hit the PTT button again and sent out another call. The radio had a voice activated function, but we’d learned the system ate batteries like crazy when it was in use. This way, we would have comms for hours.
“Sally, Wade, anybody?”
The two seconds of wait seemed to last an age.
“Sally here, Bryan. Go.”
I was almost overcome by emotion at hearing her voice.
“We’re holding for now. Enemy falling back but don’t know if they’re leaving or repositioning.” I paused, hammering out more rounds downrange even if I couldn’t really see anybody moving now. The air seemed fogged with the residue of all the shooting. I did note more bodies littering the hallway. Some still moving. Others, not so much
“Need medical down here. Aranda has a papercut he needs seen to. What’s happening there?”
“Holding,” Sally replied. “Sending medical in 30 secs. Check fire. Copy?”
It was a mishmash of shorthand, but I knew Sally.
“Check fire copy.”
I was starting to get worried about my ammunition, as I realized I’d already burned through all but two of my loaded magazines. Stupid, I cursed to myself as I realized I could shortly be standing here with an expensive club. Well, I mused fatalistically, at least I still had both my pistols if the action got too close.
“How you doing, Deputy?” I asked, not bothering to turn around.
“I think you can call me Gilbert, mano,” he drawled, and I could hear the hitch in his voice as the pain cut through.
“I called in a medic, so hold tight,” I replied, catching motion but stilling my finger before reacting again. “You got any extra mags?”
“I got two left. Where the hell did you get something full auto?”
“Probably off some of their teammates,” I admitted. “I think they are tied in with the same crew that was hitting trucks back home.”
“Was that where you got the grenade? And why didn’t it go off?”
“Shit, man, I didn’t have a grenade,” I shared, fighting off the urge to giggle at the thought. “That was just something me brother told me about one time. He did it in Iraq when his squad got pinned down, and they reacted the same way then, too.”
“Seriously?” Gilbert queried, and I could still hear the panting in his voice as he tried to ride the pain.
“Yeah, he said the hajis had them cornered in a village. They used up their grenades trying to clear some space, and the bad guys started reacting when his guys called out to take cover. He did it, and they scrambled away again.”
“That’s funny, man. I can’t believe they are retreating. There had to be twenty of them, and just two, I mean, three, of us.”
I thought about that, and I wondered how many scouts they had watching the roads. “I think they were on a timeline, and there’s probably watchers out there with eyes on the Sheriff. We just need to hold here for a few more minutes.”
“You really think Willis was in on this? I’ve known that guy five years. He was always a little, well, he cut corners, but I thought he had our backs.”
The deputy was gasping now, and I debated abandoning my post to see to his wound. He was right, though. If I turned away, we would both be sitting ducks.
“I don’t know, Gilbert. Like I said, he was looking right at me when he opened up. You saved my ass, right there. That’s all I can say.”
Even with my ears ringing, I heard the scuff of shoes on the hallway behind us, but I didn’t turn around.
“Friendlies?” I asked instead, but Gilbert didn’t respond to my question.
I twisted my head, leaning back briefly to take myself out of the line of fire. It was Brandon, carrying his rifle at the ready, flanking Sandra, his wife. Not exactly what I expected, but I couldn’t fault a doctor who made housecalls. I exchanged a grateful nod with the former Air Force officer as he approached, but it was his wife who spoke.
“What’s his condition?”
“No idea,” I said. “He was lucid and responsive up until about ten or fifteen seconds ago. I think he took a round to his side, but I couldn’t see the wound.”
That was all I could tell her at the moment, as I risked a peek back around the corner. I saw a shape bent over one of the fallen, apparently trying to extract one of their wounded. I took the shot, aiming for the leg, and felt nothing as the would-be rescuer hit the floor and started cursing, clutching at the bloody wound.
I felt a presence at my back, and I leaned away, allowing Brandon to take in the view. He was quick, and then I heard his voice near my ear. He had his rifle in hand, acting like he knew how to use it.
“Holy shit,” He exclaimed. “There’s got to be ten men down. Maybe more. How many men did they hit you with?”
I shrugged, then used my words.
“Twice that. I think there’s more dead and wounded in the rooms on both sides. A few minutes ago, some of them tried to bug out.”
“What did you do?”
“I tried my best to kill them,” I retorted, feeling my mood swing as the adrenaline crash started. “If they get out, we may end up seeing the survivors again.”
As the rush of the fighting began to fade, I also became aware of additional pain in body. Specifically, in my neck and right cheek, I felt little flares like lit matches being put out in my flesh. Repeatedly.
“Hey, why don’t you take a break,” Brandon offered. “I’ll keep an eye out here. Why don’t you help Sandy get Deputy Aranda back to the lounge when she gets him stabilized. A couple of volunteers will be down in a minute or two with a stretcher.”
I looked over at Brandon, and he was watching me with curiosity and something else in his eyes. Something I couldn’t place.
“Nah, I need to stay here. Gilbert said it earlier. There’s too many for one man to hold off,” I replied, and I fired on movement deeper down the hall to punctuate my words. “Hey, can you get me Gilbert’s mags before yo
u’all take him back. I’m almost out.”
“Yeah, I can do that,” Brandon replied.
“And where’s Wade? I figured he would be down here with you. He’s not answering his radio, so it must be on the fritz.”
“Wade? That’s Dorothy’s husband?”
“Yeah, he’s a husband that’s a Husband,” I said, trotting out the old joke.
“Uh, Wade won’t be coming,” Brandon replied, his voice going low, and he looked away.
“What? Did something happen? Wade was supposed to be guarding the lounge,” I protested. “Did they get into the lounge? It was those two cleaning bitches, wasn’t it?”
“Kit and Phil’s wives? Yeah, they tried to open the side door,” Brandon explained. “I think one of the other nurses stopped them. Your sister, in fact.”
“Sister-in-law,” I corrected automatically. “Marta. Married to my brother. But how’s Wade?”
Sandra spoke up then, taking the lead from her husband, who was apparently floundering.
“Hun, Wade didn’t make it,” Dr. Foraker announced gently. Delivering news like that was something doctors did, I thought idly, and I felt the floor give way under me. I slid into a seated position, not able to support myself.
“Oh, God. Dorothy.” I croaked.
“She has Marta with her,” Sandra said, this time reverting to her more compassionate persona, and now I could hear the regret in her voice. “Wade was with Brandon, and they were helping Sally hold the doors when the soldiers came in with their machine guns.”
“What about Sally? And Deputy Paulson?”
“The deputy was wounded in the leg, and I think he has a fractured tibia. Sally is fine, though.”
Tertiary Effects Series | Book 3 | Bite of Frost Page 37