I felt numb at the news. Wade was my oldest friend from when I moved to Albany County, and I wondered how we would survive without his knowledge, and his steading presence. The world seemed to darken around me, and suddenly, I sensed a flare in my middle that had nothing to do with the abuse my body had taken from the earlier deflected gunshot.
“Can you get me those extra mags, please?” I asked Brandon again, and as he turned to comply, I pulled myself back to my feet, using the pockmarked wall for support. I reset the M4 and adjusted the sling, finally satisfied with the way the weapon felt. An extension of my arm.
From behind Sandra, I heard a clatter as someone wheeled a gurney down the hall. Probably easier to move than carrying a stretcher, I noted as I felt for my pistols to make sure they were still seated. Brandon handed me the two spare magazines from Gilbert’s vest, and I slotted them into my own with steady hands.
Brandon must have read something in my shifted demeanor, and he wasn’t afraid to ask.
“What are you planning to do?”
“I’m going to finish securing this hall,” I replied casually. “See about separating out the wounded. Please watch my back.”
With that, I stepped out into the hall and began my stalk. The first body I checked was that of Deputy Willis, because he was closest. He was dead, his body laying with his legs sprawled out in the hall, but his upper body fell back into the security room. I gripped the M4, leaning into it the way Pat taught me, as I cleared the small space. In the corner, I found Corporal Cansler, dead from what looked like a contact wound to the back of the head. Someone had executed the man, and I had I pretty good idea it had been Willis, since they’d been in a locked room together. A quick check of the video monitors showed snow on the screens, which meant my man Pete had delivered on his promise to isolate the room for us. I hoped he had survived sheltering in his maintenance room, but it was the opposite way down the hall from where the invaders had struck.
I exited the security room and only needed to take a few steps to reach the next body, which was also dead. I recognized the style of camo once again and reflected on the supplier, wondering if they got a bulk deal on the cut and style. Not designed for winter wear. I hadn’t seen anyone else with that particular pattern other than the group hitting our delivery trucks. And now, the hospital.
I caught movement in the corner of my eye as one of the wounded twitched a hand in the direction of a dropped rifle, and I fired one round, catching him in the throat and nearly severing his head.
“I see you with a weapon, and you better already be dead,” I declared, making my intentions known as I also drew attention to myself. I saw another man flinch, but his hands were otherwise occupied trying to staunch the flow of blood flowing out of a nasty looking leg wound. Ah, the Good Samaritan, I realized.
“I need to ask you a few questions, but those will have to wait. Don’t go anywhere,” I said levelly, and the wounded man, an older white guy with a bushy head of gray hair, spared the breath necessary from panting long enough to curse me for a solid thirty seconds.
“You done?” I asked, my voice again neutral and without inflection. The man glared his hate at me, and I stopped to kneel on the bloody floor. I saw a pistol on the floor, outlined in a pool of blood, and gingerly picked it up with two fingers to slide it away from the wounded man.
“You got something else to say? Because I’ll make a special stop to listen if you do.”
“You little punk-ass bitch,” He started, and I lifted the barrel of the M4 to tap him not-so-gently in the forehead.
“With language like that, you might hurt my feelings,” I said, and something in my voice must have caught his attention.
“Oh, you think you’re a bad man, Mr. Deputy? I’ve lost count how many times I’ve made little bitches like you beg…”
“Is that all you did in Florence? Rape the other inmates? Sounds kind of boring after awhile.”
I saw the shock on his face at my question, and suddenly, he didn’t have anything else left to say. I would make sure to come back for that talk.
The next three men were all dead. I stepped around the tangle, making a point of kicking any weapons out of reach. They all had what looked like more of the nice Colt M4s, and wore holstered pistols. I would be back for more loot, for Wade’s family, after I finished.
Past the three dead men, I saw two more wounded groaning pitifully and trying to stop the bleeding. One was a younger guy, shot low in the gut and occupied with pressing a gauze dressing against his blood sodden trousers, while the other man was trying to reach a gunshot wound high up on his shoulder, at the ball joint where the arm and shoulder met up. At my approach, the man with the abdominal wound let go of the blood-soaked bandage and reached for his rifle. I waited until he had a good grip and I fired one shot, snapping his head back as the round caught him just above his left eye.
That certainly drew the attention of the other wounded man, as he tried, and failed to get both his arms above his head. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him his left arm was never going to extend that high again without some serious orthopedic surgery, and that was never going to happen. I gave him a hard look, promising the same treatment if he gave me any provocation. He kept his hands where I could see them and I gave him a nod of approval.
Just beyond the man with the wounded shoulder, I saw the first of the patient rooms that had been forced open by the invaders. I needed to clear those rooms before taking the time to hold any meaningful conversations, so I gave the wounded man a look to freeze him in place as I stepped around him. He managed to keep his good arm up, at least.
Leaning against the outer door jamb, I tried to take a quick peek into the room, but all I could see where a pair of patient beds and a pool of blood on the floor. The patient doors opened inwards, and I couldn’t see what was behind this one, except for the blood. I was no expert, but I knew nobody could lose that much and still put up much of a fight. I released my grip on the M4, letting the sling take up some slack, and drew my Springfield XD instead. From my training and limited experience, I knew it was a better choice for any close-in fighting, but when I sprang through the door at waist height, I found no need, as not one but two corpses lay out on the linoleum behind the wooden door.
Before stepping back outside, I stopped to survey the hall again, and I saw the man with the shoulder wound had tried to hide the pistol he’d drawn and stuck under his thigh, but I could see the empty Kydex holster from this angle. Rather than take the risk, I shot him in the back of the head with my own pistol and slid it back into place.
“What the fuck?” I heard a familiar voice call out, and I looked back up the way I’d come to see Sally, carbine up and scanning for threats.
“Just me, Sally,” I responded in a projected voice, wanting to make my words clear.
“Bryan? What the heck, man?”
“Check under his leg. He was waiting to use it on one of us,” I explained, and I saw Sally blanch as she turned over the now-cooling corpse and discovered his little surprise. She brought her weapon back up and surveyed the rest of the hall as I stepped out of the cleared room.
“You look like hell,” Sally commented as she gave me the once over. “Any of that blood yours?”
“Probably, yeah. Caught some slivers in the face. Not like it’s going to ruin my boyish good looks. What about you?” I countered, noting the drying splashes of dark red and brown on her Sheriff’s Department issue jacket she wore over her vest.
“Wade’s,” she admitted softly. I could see her eyes, still red from the tears.
“Damn it, Bryan. I didn’t even see him fall. Those two NG bastards were leading the charge, giving the other men covering fire as they tried to take the room. They used the ambulance to get close, and then it was a bullrush. If Wade and Brandon hadn’t been there, they might have gotten by us, especially after Johnny went down.”
I nodded, not wanting to trust my voice for a few moments as I gathered myself.
“It was close here, too. Hamlin went down before we even made the corner. Gilbert and I managed to keep them on their back foot, and then the survivors started to pull back.”
Sally and I finished clearing the rest of the hallway, all the way back to the mangled door where the roll up door once stood, leading out to the loading dock. At the dock, we found an eighteen wheeler parked to the side of the dock, along with an old Humvee with a patched canopy that looked like it had been abandoned when something mechanical failed. Neither was big enough to have transported the assault team unless they’d packed them in the back of the trailer.
We also found six more dead, four of them badly burned, and two more severely wounded raiders. I did the math. Then did it again.
“Do you realize they lost over twenty men, just on this hallway? How many raiders did you stop up front?”
“Four, plus the two NG and your buddy Phil. But they had those M249s, too.”
“Not making it a contest, Sally,” I said more gently than I was otherwise feeling. “Just not believing the manpower they put into this. That guy with the bum leg I left alive, he better be willing to talk. He knows something. I think he was in that supermax prison with some of those guys we killed in the barn.”
“Saw the gear, so that makes sense,” Sally agreed.
“I want answers, and I think Dorothy, at least, deserves them. I’m not willing to take no for an answer.”
I said that last bit with iron determination, and I saw Sally’s fierce scowl as she nodded.
“Damn straight.”
Of course, when we made our way back up front, the gray-haired man was slipping into unconsciousness, and I ended up affixing a tourniquet to prevent him from bleeding out. Brandon came out with a pair of zip ties to secure him and the other two prisoners we’d found.
“What kind of deputy doesn’t have handcuffs?” Brandon teased, obviously trying to lighten the grim mood. He failed, as Sally responded with a deadpan delivery that made me want shiver.
“The kind that normally doesn’t take prisoners,” she replied, and I saw Brandon recoil slightly at the softly spoken words as he realized she was serious.
CHAPTER FORTY
Our security contingent from the farms showed up about five minutes before Sheriff Stringer and his deputies, so they found our people securing the hospital. Mike was leading the pack, along with Nancy, Shawn Tyler, Ethan and Cece. Mike and Ethan I had expected, and Nancy was not a shock, but the arrival of two of our more recently acquired allies made me feel better, despite the grim situation. Shawn looked suitably dangerous garbed in a spare set of what we considered our full kit-out, while from her murderous glare, Cece was actively looking for somebody to kill. I resolved to thank both Shawn and Cece later for their support.
I was glad Nancy here, despite the tragic circumstances, because Dorothy was reacting as one might expect to having her husband die of violence, nearly in front of her eyes. Ethan was equally devastated at the loss of his older brother, and Nancy by necessity took over as caregiver for her sister as Mike and I took the time to clean up Wade for transport home.
“He looks so peaceful,” Mike commented softly as he used a water basin to wash away the blood and dirt from his face and hands. My brother and I had volunteered to use one of the unused examination rooms to prepare the body, and I felt the need to spend one last afternoon with my friend.
I was silent, going through the motions with a mechanical precision that belied the churning ball of anger, frustration and remorse that cycled through my guts. I second-guessed my decisions, and re-thought every move I had made when the hospital came under siege. We should have just evacuated the building at the first sign of trouble, part of me insisted, while another part wondered what might have happened had we just forted up in the lounge and barricaded the entrance. What if? That was the theme playing though my brain as I used a cheap little pocket comb I carried to straighten Wade longish hair while trying to cover up the hole in his temple that might have looked like an innocent mole from more than three feet away.
That little hole had caused all this turmoil and anger inside me. I thought of the three prisoners we’d taken, and I wondered how many similar holes I could make in them before they too succumbed to that final embrace. I didn’t realize I was crying until Mike handed me a tissue, not saying a word until the flow of tears abated.
“He was the first friend I made here, and he was always willing to help out. Not because he was looking for an angle, or trying to pile up favors. Just because that was his way. And I got him killed. How am I ever going to look Dorothy in the eye after this?”
Mike sighed, then laid a hand on my shoulder.
“Do you think Wade felt that way? For even one second, do you think you could have talked him into doing something he didn’t want to do? Pat tried to tell us. He tried to tell me, and Wade, that this was a bad idea.” Mike released a shuddering sigh before he could continue. “If anybody should feel guilty, it’s me. I was right there, claiming we could hold this damn place against all comers, and where was I when it all went down? Sitting on my ass, watching a bank of monitors and counting the hours until everybody came home.”
“Come on, Mike, this isn’t on you. It was luck of the draw, and Wade drew the black bean,” I retorted, and then I reflected on what I had just said. Mike could see the realization as it swept across my face.
“You just figured it out, too, didn’t you? I felt the same way you did, the first time I came back from a patrol, and one of my buddies was in a body bag,” Mike revealed, his voice filled with compassion as he spoke the words from his heart.
“You have to learn to live with it, the survivor’s guilt, the same way I did. Because if you don’t, you’re just belittling the sacrifice Wade made. That all our heroes make when they give up their lives for something they believe in, Bryan.”
“But why him? Damn it, I asked him to guard the door to the lounge to keep him out of the firing line. He had no business mixing it up with…Shit. I’m doing that now, aren’t I?”
“You tried your best, Bryan. Hell, nobody could ask for more,” Mike said in a consoling tone. Then, his topic changed a bit, and I could tell he was itching to ask something. “In fact, I think you kind of scared Brandon a little bit when you started clearing that corridor by yourself. He said you just went through killing everything that was still moving. Like a machine. Was that because you found out about Wade?”
I thought about the question for a second, then I nodded.
“I wanted to kill them all,” I admitted. “Still do. I want to find their camp, Mike. I want to kill them all, then salt the earth. That’s really all I can think about right now. If Julie hadn’t shown up when he did, I think I would’ve been able to find out what I need to know.”
“I don’t have to tell you, that isn’t a healthy place to be, brother. I know, because I’ve been there myself. Pretty sure Pat’s had days like that, too. I know it doesn’t help right now, but give it some time. That’s the only advice I can give. Give it time, and don’t push away those who care for you.”
“You mean like Nancy?”
“That’s exactly who I mean. She’s hurting, too. She needs you to let her know you care, and that you share her pain. Wade was more to her than her sister’s husband. He was her friend, too, and a brother when she needed a shoulder to cry on. Go to her, and Dorothy. They both will need your support.”
I thought about Mike’s words as we finished preparing Wade’s body for the planned funeral. Looking down, I straightened my friend’s collar, and thought about what we’d tried to do here. Wade gave his life to defend his wife, and before that he’d spent so much of his time to make sure this community had access to the life-saving benefits of this hospital. I wondered how many lives had been saved since Rockfall because this emergency room remained open when so many other similar facilities had closed their doors.
If Wade was willing to spend his life on such an endeavor, then who was I
to second guess his decisions?
“Can you finish this up? I have some people I need to find.”
“Yeah, I got this. Now get going,” Mike commanded imperiously, and I was too emotionally drained to respond in any way other than a vague wave of the hand.
I found Nancy back in the lounge, sitting with a semi-comatose Dorothy and a shell-shocked Ethan.
“Jesus, Bryan, you look like hell,” Ethan observed, and I saw Nancy wince as she looked up to examine me closely for the first time.
I’d ended up needing twenty-one stitches and multiple butterfly bandages to patch up the damage to my face, with the worst being a slice from right cheekbone to chin that was long but fairly shallow and bloody. Dr. Foraker, again donning her medical persona, took care of the stitches after Marta did most of the digging to remove the foreign matter from my face. Given the shortages of certain medications, I was pleased at the time for the antibiotics I received, while sad not to receive even a shot of Lidocaine before they started mining my flesh for chips and slivers of the ceramic from the hallway tiles.
Nancy jumped up and grabbed me in a fierce hug, her exuberance making me wince. I tried to ignore the pain, but she was aware enough to sense when I flinched.
“Where else are you hurt?”
“Nowhere, just bruised,” I admitted.
I was stripped down to the tee shirt I wore under my body armor, and I was also wearing a flannel shirt Mike had raided out of the Lost and Found clothes hamper at the hospital. My painter’s pants with the knee pads survived, though they were caked with blood and dirt from my rolling on the floor.
“Bryan,” Nancy demanded, and I whispered in her ear.
“My chest, but I don’t want to talk about it in from of Dorothy or Ethan,” I admitted softly. “Please, just let it go for now.”
Nancy had been around us enough to realize the implication of what I had confessed. I’d taken another potentially fatal hit to my trauma plate. She started shivering when I decided to ignore my own pain and returned her tight hug.
Tertiary Effects Series | Book 3 | Bite of Frost Page 38