“I’m actually more worried about this knife hanging out of my stomach.” Randy replied. He was wincing as he gingerly poked around at the hilt of the knife sticking out of his stomach.
Chapter 7: Branded
Kyler pulled into the campground he last remembered the Brotherhood using as one of their forward operating bases. This was the same place he’d left with a small band of men a few weeks before to try and turn a massive herd of Zombies. They’d gotten the Zombie herd rerouted away from their strongholds further south, but the price had been steep for the men sent out to do the job. Only Kyler was still standing.
Kyler was in awe of the carnage on the interstate that him and the patrol he’d been with had left behind. Piles of corpses littered the road. Chunks of concrete were missing, and large sections of the road were cracked open from the shock of the grenades they’d thrown into the massive herd of Zombies headed south down the interstate. Kyler hoped all of that had been worth it. In addition to losing the men he’d come to think of as friends he’d also ended up with massive scarring from the burns that he’d suffered all over his body in the forest fire. Not to mention a collection of new scars from the fighting to make his way back to the base.
The reason his left eye was still swollen shut came storming out of the front of the commanders cabin headed straight for him. The commander opened up the door and walked towards them a few seconds later. He was gazing curiously at the two of them.
“Did you come to return my stuff?” Kia asked. She’d stopped a few feet away and was staring angrily at him.
Kyler opened his car door and saluted the commander. He completely ignored Kia for the moment. His mind was racing trying to understand what her being here meant for him. The way she’d lit into him made him think he needed to understand the situation before he just started talking.
“Hey Kyler. Glad you made it back. Any of the others going to be limping back anytime soon?” The commander asked.
“This intern or whatever he is left Diamond and me to die when he stole our jeep and supplies and took off while we were being chased by Zombies.” Kia was spinning like crazy. She must’ve already told some lies to the commander not expecting to have Kyler actually make it back to the base. Too bad for her.
“Sir. This woman and her companion were out scavenging when I ran into them. They attacked me, knocked me unconscious, and then tied me up in the back of their jeep. I came to as they were abandoning the jeep and making a run for it. They left me to die and I did what I had to do to make it out of there. I never abandoned anyone who hadn’t already left me to die.”
“Liar! You killed Diamond you piece of –“ Kia had reared back to take a swing at Kyler. She had a hatchet she’d pulled out of somewhere. Kyler’s pistol appeared in his hand aimed right at her face. He cocked the gun and she slowly lowered the hatchet.
“You won’t be hitting me again. Sir, is there somewhere we can go for me to report in? I don’t know what this woman’s been telling you, but most of it’s probably a load.”
The commander had a soldier come out and escort Kia back into the compound. Then him and Kyler went into a small room used for scouts to make reports. The walls were covered with maps and whiteboards. The commander invited a few more men to join them and they listened intently to Kyler’s version of everything that’d happened since they’d set off to turn the Zombie parade. When he was done and had answered all the extra questions the men had for him Kyler was sent to his cabin to clean up and get a good night’s sleep. He was ordered to report back the next morning.
A light rapping on his cabin door had him up off the couch and cocking back the hammer on his pistol again as he checked to see who was at the door. The woman identified herself as the camp nurse, so he let her in. She’d brought food for him and an assortment of burn creams and antibiotics for him to take. She kept saying how amazed she was he was still alive as she rubbed cream on burn after burn and examined injury after injury that he pointed out to her.
“You’ll probably live. I don’t see anything life threatening. Use that cream on the burn scars as much as you can and it’ll help you end up slightly less ugly. Take one pill out of this bottle every day for the next ten days. That should kill any kind of weird bacteria you may have picked up. You also need to drink about ten gallons of water. You’re extremely dehydrated but all in all I think you’re doing about as well as can be expected. I’m actually going to run grab an IV bag and hook you up. I think you could really use it and the commander did tell me to use whatever medical supplies I needed to patch you up.”
Kyler woke up the next morning feeling better than he had in a really long time. IV bags were the bee’s knees. Whatever the hell that meant. The nurse had been fond of the saying. Kyler was officially fond of anyone who hooked him up to one of those miracle bags. His whole body hurt like crazy but at least he felt good enough to care. He hadn’t realized how bad he’d been feeling until he woke up feeling good for once. He pulled his uniform and weapons on and headed for the main administrative building to report in for the morning.
The sergeant who’d joined in on the debriefing session the previous day came and collected him after he’d reported in. The sergeant looked him over then told him to follow him. Kyler followed him through the oddly empty base to the main mess hall. It’d been a combination ice cream parlor and deli back before the apocalypse. The ice cream prices were still up on the board, but the gift shop junk and all the non-essential items had been moved out to provide enough space for when the whole camp needed to meet up.
It wasn’t the whole camp in the mess hall area though. Kyler guessed it was about a third of the soldiers and all the officers. There wasn’t anyone in the mess who was a civilian. These were all fighting men. In the corner a small propane heater was setup and going. Kyler didn’t get that as it was pretty hot already in the building. He started to move over to the side to observe when the sergeant motioned for him to go to the middle of the room where the commander was. Kyler walked up to the commander and saluted. After the commander returned the salute Kyler stood there waiting to see what to do next.
“Soldier. You’ve stood bravely against our enemies. You’ve endured hardship and pain to further the defense of our country. You’ve placed your own body between death and our people and stood tall. Your actions over the last few weeks have shown your character. You meet the criteria to join the Brotherhood. The one criterion above all others for entry is to commit an act of valor on behalf of the people. When you led that massive Zombie herd away from our settlements you committed such an act. We’ve documented and approved the act of valor and are filing it with the senate for ratification at their next meeting.”
Kyler stood still trying to take all this in. He knew that certain soldiers were Brotherhood and others weren’t. He knew the Brotherhood soldiers got preferential treatment and were generally the better people to get to know. He hadn’t been completely sure how anyone joined their ranks, but it looked like he was on the verge of finding out. He bit down his nervousness and paid close attention to everything the commander was saying.
“The Brotherhood stands as the guard to the people and the senate. The Brotherhood wages the war that will carry this country out of darkness and back into the light. The Brotherhood demands fierce loyalty. The Brotherhood requires you volunteer to join. Nothing can release you from your bond once you’ve joined save for death. In this world from now until we’ve reclaimed the land you will be expected to stand beside us. Do you accept the rights and responsibilities of the Brotherhood? Is it your wish to join us? Knowing this is not a covenant to be entered into lightly.”
Wondering if anyone ever said no and survived Kyler loudly answered. “I do sir!”
“Warrior of the Brotherhood, you’ll now be branded with the symbol of our solidarity. Symbols carried from the old world into this new one we seek to build. A circle with thirteen stars and an eagle. The stars symbolize our desire to reunite the states once again into
one country. The eagle represents that we are the warriors who’ll get it done. From now on any member of the Brotherhood will stand and die with you and you will stand and die with them. You will protect the people and the senate, and you will follow all honorable orders. Do you swear to this?”
“I do sir!” Kyler shouted out a little too loudly. He was trying to ignore the metal pole they’d pulled out of the propane heater on the other side of the mess hall. He wished he hadn’t figured out what they were doing with the heater. Two men pulled off his jacket, shirt and undershirt. A few chuckles from the crowd as the men helping him with his shirt took forever getting rid of all of the weapons he had strapped around his torso and hidden in his clothes. The chuckles turned to surprised murmurs of admiration when the shirt was finally off and they could see the scars covering Kyler’s body. They were the marks of a warrior.
Someone handed him a bottle of Jack Daniels. Deciding this wasn’t the time to abstain he drank a few big gulps of the burning liquor. He somehow managed to keep himself from vomiting it all right back up thus saving himself some serious man points. The same guy took the Jack Daniels bottle back from him and handed him a folded-up t-shirt. Kyler looked at the t-shirt then at the guy who’d handed it to him.
“Put it in your mouth and bite down on it. This is going to hurt like a mother.” The man explained.
Kyler shoved the t-shirt in his mouth and stood rigidly at attention. He was doing his best to compartmentalize the pain so he wouldn’t make any child like noises when they burned the hell out of his back. The commander said a few more ritualistic words that Kyler didn’t catch. Then someone pressed a searing hot brand with the symbol of the Brotherhood into the middle of his back. It figured they’d find one of the spots on his body where his skin was relatively free of burn scars. At least he already had the burn cream the nurse had given him to rub into it later.
Thankful for the t-shirt in his mouth since he was sure he’d screamed like a little girl when that poker had been pressed to his back, he spit it out once the pain diminished from unbearable to intolerable. Someone rubbed some gunk on his back. Someone else was slapping on a bandage for him so he wouldn’t get infected. That may not seem like the manliest move of all time, but infection was now something you could easily die from. You could pretty much die from anything now. Medicine may be lying around in pharmacies for the taking but the people who knew how much of which medication to cure whatever you happened to have were in very short supply. If he’d only known what was in store, he would’ve downloaded WebMD to his phone at the beginning of all of this.
“You good to go son?” The commander asked him with a worried look on his face. Kyler realized he’d slipped off into a weird daydream tangent after the burn.
“Good to go sir. Proud to be a member of the Brotherhood.”
“You earned it. Something else you’ve earned is a trip to the capital. You’ll be looking at getting reassigned when you get there. I know you were trying to get to Florida when all this happened, so I’ve noted that as a request on your orders. Now that you’re Brotherhood you’ll have some more pull on where you end up. Proud to have you onboard. Hope you find your family.” The captain shook Kyler’s hand again then left the room. Kyler had pretty much forgotten his cover story had been about getting back down to Florida to check on his family so was happy the captain hadn’t asked for any details.
Most of the officers disappeared over the next twenty minutes leaving Kyler in the room with the Brotherhood noncoms. The Jack Daniels began to flow freely as it went from medicinal to entertainment. Kyler did shot after shot with strangers welcoming him to the Brotherhood. Not used to drinking the sudden infusion of way too much Jack Daniels on top of the injuries he’d recently suffered and the drugs in his system had Kyler ready to pass out in less than an hour. The last thing he remembered before he was carried to his cabin by two of the Brotherhood arguing about the lyrics to a Billy Joel song was being told to make sure he was ready to leave bright and early in the morning. He didn’t have the capacity at that point to ask where he was going or who he was going with, so he just nodded and focused on not hitting his head on the table that kept jumping up at him.
Chapter 8: Apply Direct Pressure
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a knife stuck in your stomach!” Kelly yelled. Her obvious worry growing larger when she saw the blood stains spreading out from where the hilt of the knife was protruding from her idiot husband’s belly. Randy tried to come up with a suitably sarcastic retort but was just in too much pain. Kelly started slowing the van down.
“What are you doing? We need to get out of here before any more of those freaks catch up to us.”
“You have a knife sticking out of your stomach. We’re going to pull it out and get you bandaged up before you die. It’ll only take a few minutes so shut up and let me get it done.” Kelly opened the van door on those last words and disappeared around the back of the van. Randy sat in the van waiting for her to come back trying to remember first aid rules for bleeding or pulling something out of your body. All he could picture was the medieval war movies where they’d push the arrow all the way through the other side of someone’s body because pulling it out could cause more damage.
He was trying to figure out if the ‘push it through’ scenario was applicable to a serrated knife blade when Kelly showed back up with Myriah in tow. She had her Ziploc bag of bandages and ointments with her. Randy assumed she also had some medicine stashed away for him to take as well.
“Take these. Antibiotic and a pain killer. I’m going to pull the knife out and Myriah’s going to slap these dressings on as soon as it’s out. I’ve rubbed Neosporin all over them so hopefully that’ll help keep you from dying. Also, we don’t have time to wait for the drugs to kick in and we don’t have any booze or anything, so this is probably going to hurt a lot. You have to stay as still as you can though no matter what.”
Randy stared at Kelly after that little speech. She was going to rip a knife out of his stomach, and he was supposed to chill out and be still? He personally thought they had plenty of time for the drugs to kick in before she ripped the knife out. Why not drive for a couple of hours until the Oxy made him nice and mellow then yank out the knife? Better yet find a liquor store and let him self-medicate. Randy could totally see himself being passed out for this whole little operation. Being passed out seemed like the way to go if you were getting a knife ripped out of your stomach. He thought of bringing up the fact that Kelly had requested epidurals for all the kids to be delivered. He knew everyone always said childbirth was the worse pain you could ever experience but he was willing to bet having a serrated knife ripped out of your stomach was a close second.
“I so miss 911.” Kelly said before starting to tug on the knife handle. Randy started screaming bloody murder. Myriah turned ghost pale but stood her ground holding onto all the bandages and looking ready to dart in and do her thing. The knife wasn’t coming out clean. Kelly felt like she was doing more damage than good. It got too quiet in the confines of the van. She glanced up at Randy and saw he was out cold. Without him sucking in his breath and cursing loudly it was scary quiet. Myriah stared with big eyes at her mom trying to pull a knife out of her dad while blood pooled up all over his stomach.
Kelly’s face hardened. She took a deep breath. They didn’t have time to hang out on the side of the road. Being gentle with the knife wasn’t working. She put one hand on Randy’s chest and the other on the knife hilt and pulled like she was plucking out a grey hair. Her decisive action was rewarded with a spray of blood covering her and Myriah. Myriah completely froze up at the sight of all the blood. Kelly grabbed the wad of bandages from her daughter and pressed them down hard on the hole in her husband trying to stop the bleeding. The first round of bandages was so covered in blood she couldn’t get the tape to stick to his skin.
She yelled for Myriah to grab another wad from the bag on the floor and hand them to her. Myriah looked down frantically for
the bag. She had big tears spilling out of her eyes and she was shaking like a leaf. Her dad looked pale, cold and dead. She was scared it was her fault for not getting the bandages to her mom faster. She fumbled around for extra and handed them to her mom when she finally found them. Kelly pulled off the blood-soaked bandages and slid on the new ones. Once she had them over the wounded area, she held them down firmly while using an extra one to mop up the blood around the wound. She did that a few times to get Randy’s skin clean enough to get the tape to stick.
“Is dad going to live?” Myriah asked in a trembling voice. Kelly bit back her frustration at her daughter and answered as nicely as she could.
“He’ll live. We need to find some medical supplies and I need to learn how to sew up wounds, but he should live. Or, better yet, we find a medic or a doctor or even a seamstress who could do it for us. Now I need you to watch him while I drive. Ah, hell.” Kelly had looked out the front window of the van and seen a couple of rough looking Zombies shuffling in their direction. The ones who’d spent way too much time in stasis in their cars or laid out around the interstate typically looked pretty bad. On the plus side, they also tended to move super slow since their muscles had atrophied, and their energy level was super low. They could still screech as good as the fresh-looking ones though.
Zombies! (Book 4): Nowhere To Hide Page 6