The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark

by Boyd Craven III

  I nodded mutely, and Courtney got to her feet. I understood part of what she was doing, even in my addled state. She was paying off a debt, and keeping me away from Jamie for the time being. Until I was more stable, I couldn’t be around her. Mistaking her for Mary in front of her husband was one thing, but I knew that the quick exchange with Courtney had more truth to it than I was comfortable with. Until that moment, I hadn’t even fully admitted it to myself. At least Jamie hadn’t heard me say the words.

  I sighed in relief as the cramp passed.

  “So, guys,” I said in a surprisingly calm voice, “What happened to you, and how did you all escape and…?”

  “Rest,” Courtney told me, “We’ll fill you in until the doc comes back.”

  35

  “That kid who turned us in, he rode in the Hummer with us,” Mel told me. “He’d been found and taken into the FEMA camp, and when he described you to the security there, they got really interested.”

  “Why?”

  It was Jamie who answered. “There’s somebody down south who’s been raising hell with FEMA camps, freeing prisoners. I guess we were about two hours from one of the larger camps, and they had already been on heightened alert. That’s why the Hummers were out there.”

  “They questioned us all, one by one, and they took you away to a separate place,” Courtney said. “We told them your name and what little we knew. I didn’t think it would hurt. I’m sorry they tortured you. I didn’t know that telling them would be so bad,” she said, turning as the door opened and Luis strode in.

  Seeing her crying, he walked over and used his thumb to wipe away a tear that was rolling down her cheek.

  “I wasn’t the guy who they were looking for,” I said. “Somehow, they had me mixed up with somebody I used to know.”

  “What?” Luis asked.

  “Yeah, John Norton. He’s a retired SEAL. Got a son who’s a missionary somewhere in South America, I think.”

  “So the whole thing, what they did to you, was pointless?” Mel asked.

  “I don’t remember a lot of it,” I lied. “Things are blurry, but I remember that. They kept saying I was already dead. Being in a cell with them, I knew I was a dead man who still had a heartbeat. But you got me out,” I said looking at Jamie. “Thanks.”

  She nodded at me. “Well, during the processing, I saw somebody walk past in a sheriff’s uniform, and I called out to him. It was a deputy who recognized Mel and me. He made a call on his radio and after Steve came out, then they became a lot nicer with us.”

  “Wait, your husband was working for them?” I asked, confused.

  She nodded. “The entire department that my husband ran were ordered to work there, by executive order,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But they were ready to leave with their families. It wasn’t horrible in there, for what little time I was there, but nobody was free to go, except for the bus drivers and the guards, who brought in more people. The deputies worked as an internal police force for DHS and FEMA. I guess some camps have NATO advisors. Like that guy that we heard on the radio.”

  I nodded weakly. “So, what happened when you recognized the deputy?”

  “My dad came up,” Mel answered, “yelling and screaming at the soldiers. I guess one of the perks of working there, is that the families don’t have to do the same work as everyone else, and no rough handling…”

  “Was he surprised?” I asked, despite myself.

  “Yeah, after he knocked out the guy who was trying to get his superior on the radio… he wasn’t moving fast enough for Steve. After that, it was a few days of finding out where you were, and then we broke out.”

  “We?” I asked.

  “All of the sheriff’s department, their families, and anybody else we could take with us. It was kind of horrible. There was a NATO group nearby, one with a ton of Hummers and a big armored truck thingy with a cannon on top. Anyway, they chased us for a while, but we got here, got things set up, and then came for you when we could.”

  “I only saw a dozen or so people when you guys broke me out…” I winced, the cramps coming back. My toes curled so hard, they popped like I was breaking bones.

  Courtney sat down with me, pulling my arms to my side. I wasn’t actually controlling them, but they were tight against my chest.

  “Breathe through it,” she told me.

  Everyone waited, and within a moment, it passed again. I was drenched in sweat and starting to shiver.

  “There were about thirty people in on the assault of the base you were at,” Luis said. “We had to stay behind, but just about every other deputy or male on the premises here went out. It was almost too easy. It was like they wanted you to have an easy way to get out.”

  “Trust me, I probably wasn’t going anywhere. Even if I’d gotten outside… I think they were only there to keep me in, not repel a significant force.”

  “They had a surprise,” Mel said, “My dad talked about that. He did the thing you had the town do when the ambush was set up for those raiders, except he didn’t use bait, just somebody blowing a police whistle.”

  “What would have happened if they had used the Hummers?” I asked them.

  “I guess they would have used the ones that we took in our getaway. One of them is armored, but none of them have big guns like the ones that caught us on the side of the road,” Courtney said.

  I was tired and getting more so. Still, from experience, I knew that I wouldn’t sleep. I never could when I’d gone through withdrawals. Instead, I’d gone to the hazy gray world where I wanted to sleep, but could never quite get there.

  “But they got me out,” I gasped as another cramp started.

  “Yeah, and here we are—home,” Jamie said, giving me a brief smile and meeting my gaze for the first time.

  I tried to smile back. Maybe she believed the story about being a drug-withdrawal-induced jabber jaw.

  “In here,” I heard and then the door opened, and Doc Soams walked in with three men, one of which was Steve.

  “Wait, earlier you said the deputies worked for your Steve?” I asked Jamie.

  “Well yeah, he’s the County Sheriff,” she answered.

  Huh. When they’d told me what he did, I’d thought they meant he was a sheriff, as in a deputy. I hadn’t caught on that he was THE Sheriff.

  “Telling stories about me?” Steve asked, coming over to the couch and standing at the foot.

  My friends backed up to give him room. I looked at the stairwell and then back at them. He did the same thing.

  “Stairwell is too narrow to do more than one person at a time,” he told me. “Can you walk?”

  “A little,” I gasped as a wave of nausea had me suddenly dry heaving.

  “Well, don’t get any on me,” Steve said as he pulled my arm over his shoulder and lifted at the waist in a fireman’s carry.

  I half expected to get hit as we went through the doorway to the stairs, but I was wrong. Instead, I felt the up and down swaying motion that made me think of boat rides.

  “Let me get him situated and then everyone can come in,” Steve said over his shoulder.

  It was at least a dozen steps from the stairs to a small bedroom. I could see it, albeit upside down. A little cloth chair sat next to a twin sized bed. A candle and a box of matches had been placed on the nightstand beside it. Another open doorway revealed the connecting bathroom. Then, I was placed right side up and on the bed. I looked up and saw the Sheriff was sweating from the effort. He got some deep breaths in before he leaned down.

  “Listen, I want to thank you for getting Jamie and Mel back to me. I was slowly going crazy without knowing. After so long, I’d thought they were probably dead. I mean, I’d been getting reports about Michigan, and that it was pretty much a dead state in most spots. So I really appreciate it.” He put his hand out, and it took all of my strength to take it and shake it.

  Before letting go, he leaned in close to me. “But as soon as you’re healthy… I want you to move on, an
d stay away from my wife.”

  Maybe I hadn’t fooled anybody. Shit.

  “Yeah, as soon as I can, Courtney, Luis, and I are headed to Arkansas.”

  “I’m not asking them to move on,” he said, and let go of my hand, and backed up and walked out of the door. Message received.

  The doc was the first one in, struggling with something tall and chrome. It took me a second to realize it was an IV stand, with several bags already set up. Then, folks started coming in.

  “I’m going to sit with him for this,” Courtney told Luis.

  “I figured you would,” he replied.

  She raised an eyebrow and leaned in. He kissed her, and I jumped with a sudden jolt of pain as the doc stuck a needle in my arm, the site wet from the alcohol swab. I hadn’t even felt him working until the needle had gone in.

  “Sorry, I normally have phlebotomists or nurses to do the IVs. I’m a little out of practice.” He taped a bandage over the IV.

  He hit a few buttons, and I felt the cold sensation of the solution entering my body. Strangely, it seemed like the opposite of when I would shoot up; the smack always felt hot. Too hot. Maybe it was because of the different protocol. I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t know what was in it, I just trusted the doc to make me well again. If I didn’t die that was; Salina’s words still hung over my head.

  “So, now what do we do?” Courtney asked.

  “Well, as soon as I put this into his IV,” Doc Soams pulled out a preloaded syringe, “he’ll fall asleep. Then I’ll turn the drip on. After that, it’s just time and keeping him from pulling the IV out.”

  “I thought you were going to sedate him?” Mel asked.

  “He’ll probably have some shaking fits. Those are normal, but it’s the convulsions that I’m worried about. If it goes on for too long, I have Ativan to administer, or I can leave it here for whoever’s going to sit with him.”

  “If you tell me the dose, I can do it,” Courtney offered.

  “Sure, it’s not brain surgery,” the doc said, laughing at his own joke.

  His laughter shut off abruptly when he realized nobody else was laughing, and that alone made me smile.

  “Ok, so… I’ll be here for the first hour after sedation, to make sure there’s no reaction. Then I have a baby that I need to go check on,” he said, putting the needle of sedative into the inlet of the IV, and pushing the plunger down.

  “How long will it be to take effect?” I asked him, feeling resigned to whatever fate I had. Live or die.

  “You should be feeling it soon. You’ll just fall asleep. Everybody should say your goodbyes now; he’ll be out for a couple days at least.”

  “See you soon, I hope,” I told them, and almost as a chorus, everyone said goodbye. Courtney flopped down on the chair next to the bed as she said hers.

  “Count down from ten,” Doc said.

  “Ten.”

  I didn’t want to die, but I knew the odds were against me.

  “Nine.”

  I wanted to hold Mary once again, and plead with my daughter not to hate me for being such a lousy father.

  “Eight.”

  I prayed that I wouldn’t end up a vegetable, and make the O’Sullivan’s responsible for me.

  “Seven,” I said, my eyelids heavy.

  The cramp was there, but it wasn’t knocking the breath out of me as bad.

  “Six.”

  The brief kiss I’d shared with Jamie.

  “Fiv—”

  I felt my head slumping.

  “He’s out,” Doc said, and even though I wasn’t all the way there yet, I heard him.

  I was throwing up so violently, my stomach felt like it was being turned inside out. I was crying, and a woman was holding onto me, holding me upright in her lap, pleading with me to hold still. Pain. Doc was putting in another syringe into the IV. I saw this through slit eyes. Salina’s words repeated in my head over and over.

  I had the shakes, but could feel the warmth of somebody sitting close to me. A hand was running through my hair. A cool cloth brushed over my brow. I didn’t want to die.

  Doc was putting another shot into the IV. Whatever it was, it was going to kill me…

  36

  I smelled smoke. My body hurt as if I’d been working out and had really overdone it. My stomach felt like it had been scraped clean, turned inside out, and then scrubbed with rusty barbed wire. Still, I felt the pangs of hunger, not the overwhelming nausea that had been plaguing me. I looked at my arm and saw the IV still in it. I looked up and saw an empty bag of saline. Two more things came to me in a flash. I wasn’t alone in the bed, and I had to piss so bad I was worried I wouldn’t make it to the bathroom.

  Pushing myself up, I grabbed the IV stand. I didn’t know how long I’d been out for, and my thoughts were muddied from the sedation. I sort of remembered waking up, unless that had been a dream. I didn’t know. Still, I saw nothing plugged into the IV stand so being careful, I rolled it to the open bathroom door with me in tow. My legs still felt shaky, and I was weak, but somehow I’d come out the other end. I hit the lever to flush the toilet and was surprised when it went down. I’d done it on auto pilot and then, had been surprised when it worked. I tried the lights with no success.

  Getting back to the bed was a little more work than I’d imagined. Especially, considering the way the woman was sprawled out across it, now that I wasn’t in it. I pulled one end of the covers up and saw it was Courtney. She was sleeping the sleep of the utterly exhausted, or the half dead. I let the covers drop, and she pulled them over her shoulder and rolled into the middle, making a mumbling sound. I hadn’t died. That’s when I saw the half-eaten sandwich and a glass of water. Probably hers.

  She wouldn’t mind, so I ate it and marveled… I hadn’t died. I sat down in the chair with that thought in my mind. Somehow, I was on the other side. God, I wanted some smack, but no worse than at any other moment. I could usually deal with the mental stuff, it was just when the physical side of it hurt so badly, making me sick, that I would lose my nerve and shoot up again. It wasn’t an option, and I didn’t want to go through with that hell again. Even if it had been a breeze this time.

  Looking around, I saw that the window overlooking the yard had a spider crack, with a strip of duct tape over it. It hadn’t been that way before. Also, there was a big chunk out of the plaster across from the window, to the right of where I was sitting. I turned my neck to look at it, and the realization hit me. Somebody had shot into the room while I was out of it.

  “You’re up on your own? They told me you were a fighter,” Doc Soams said, walking into the bedroom with a steaming mug of what smelled like coffee.

  “I feel like hammered shit,” I admitted, reaching out for the cup.

  The doc hesitated. “Here,” he said, “I was going to have a cup, but I wasn’t expecting you up already.”

  I started to hand it back, and he put his hands up as if to tell me to stop. “No, it’s ok. Normally, I wouldn’t have somebody who went through what you just did start on coffee. Actually, the soup would be better, but I think you might need it,” he said, looking at the now empty plate.

  “Thanks,” I said, my voice strangely hoarse.

  Have you ever had the world's best ice cream cone on a day that’s so hot, and your throat is so parched? That’s what it felt like as soon as I took the first sip of the coffee. I closed my eyes and took another. I felt something on my chest and opened my eyes to see the doc holding the end of his stethoscope over my heart.

  “If you feel up to it, I’ll pull the IV out.”

  “I feel hungover,” I told him. “But about a thousand percent better than when I was laid down.” I took another sip… it was heavenly. “How long was I out?”

  “Three days, instead of two. You had a reaction, so I had to give you antihistamines and epinephrine,” the Doc said, his gaze going to the left as he talked to me.

  Liar. What was he lying about?

  “I’m doing ok now?
” I asked.

  “Yes. Your friend is pretty worn out, though. Don’t be surprised if she sleeps half the day, now that you aren’t thrashing about.”

  “Was it bad?” I asked.

  “It’s never easy.” He pulled the bandage back from my IV.

  He got the supplies out, removed the IV, covered the site with a cotton ball, and then a Band-Aid. When I’d been shooting up myself, I’d rarely even covered it with a Band-Aid. A thumb was used until it quit bleeding. No wonder I had scars from getting infected.

  “I smell smoke,” I told him. A statement, not a question.

  “We’ve had some problems. It kept me from giving you some of the doses of the sedative on time.”

  The reason I kept waking up, I thought.

  “What kind of problems?”

  “Soldiers, or DHS. I don’t know which.”

  “So, how bad was it?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Eleven, what?” I asked.

  “Eleven dead.”

  His words chilled me.

  “Who? Jamie, Mel—”

  “Mostly our people,” the doc said somberly.

  “Mostly?” I thundered, trying not to panic, not screaming for fear of waking Courtney.

  “Her man, Luis…” he said, looking at Courtney, “…he went to the fence line to pull Sheriff O’Sullivan out of the line of fire. He’d been hit, and Luis dragged him to a fortified spot. One of the goons opened up with a SAW. There was nothing I could do.”

  The sudden sense of loss hit me hard. I wasn’t best friends with him, but we’d been together for the trip here, and I’d known him from the market, and then more when he’d become Courtney’s man. I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to scream or to cry. Probably both.