by Dalton Wolf
“Open fire. Defend those soldiers!” the colonel yelled, pointing to the tree line.
The top of the Quarantine Wall opened up like the defenses on the beaches of Normandy. The trees and parts of the barricade on the Ogden Wall side that miraculously remained solid following the tornado now exploded in blasts of splintered wood, steel and plastic as the Guardsmen and Militia fired into the walls to force the ‘enemy’ from them. Batmouche’ reached the logs and took aim at the men firing on the log pile from the nearest tree line.
“Ok, go! I’ll cover you!” she shouted to Hef, who hobbled out into the field and started into a gimpy run, sinking deeper into the mud with every step. Batmouche’ emptied a clip into the tree line, forcing many of the Ogdenites to flee. Now with cover-fire from the Quarantine wall, she turned to follow Hephaestus, planning to get him safely back to the base; she had a particularly intricate mission she wanted to try later that night and would need him mostly healthy to successfully achieve all objectives. But perhaps that just was not to be. As she slogged through mud and muck, slowing, but still quickly closing the distance between herself and Hephaestus, Batmouche’s body spasmed once, then twice and something forced a ragged grunt from her chest. Both Hef and Gimp Bait heard the impact of bullets slamming into her Kevlar. Her body careened first to the left, then to the right, slowing down with another thwap as another bullet struck. She faltered into a stumbling stagger and started to fall, but the private was there. Hef instantly stopped and slough-hopped back to help and both men had her up to a stumbling run. The two men held most of her weight as they ran, but allowed her to help them by thrusting her legs under her own power as if she were running in the air.
“Just go!” she yelled. “Leave me!” she coughed and blood trickled down her chin. Both men ran on. “That’s an order,” she coughed a bloody spray onto Hef’s shoulder.
“See, I’m already dead,” she blurted, looking at the blood.
“You bit your lip, Captain,” Hef explained with a grin.
“Leave me and save yourselves!” she ordered again.
“Sorry, ma’am. You said Calvin Hobbes was in charge until the mission is over.”
Hephaestus laughed. Two more steps brought them within the gate, which was quickly closed and fortified with a rolling, concrete wall. Once behind the smaller wall they were guided to the side where a medical squad waited. The doctor there rushed forward to inspect the injuries. Three bullets had smashed into the Kevlar vest. He motioned for them to remove it, which they did, revealing the second Kevlar vest.
“That’s promising,” the corpsman muttered under her breath. On further inspection, she found that the holes went through the second vest as well. “Take that one off too,” she ordered with a less optimistic sigh and the techs cut it free.
“What the hell is that?” someone asked.
Scaggs leaned in and explained. “It’s chain mail armor.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Will she be ok?” Hephaestus asked in concern.
“Maybe. The bullets went through the armor, but I can feel them here very close to the surface and flattened out, intact, but not shredded. I think it will depend on how much internal damage the impact did. We’ll have to keep her under observation, but we’re going to be doing that with all of you anyway,” he laughed. “Her vitals are steady. I think she should be fine, but don’t quote me on that.” He assured them. “You’re in much worse shape than she is,” the medic reached down to look at Hef’s injured foot.
“That is good.” Hef nodded and squeezed her hand. But then his black eyes were drawn to the unconscious Lucy laid out on a gurney and his heart stopped. He jerked his foot from the grasp of the medic and rushed over to where Boomer, Joel and Gus and several of the others stood around her. “What happened?” he demanded, leaning down and taking her hand in his, the other hand stroking her hair with the tenderness of a father to the forehead of a sick child.
“She just went running out there to save you,” Felicia explained.
“What? Why would she do something like that?” Hef asked in absolute surprise.
“People do crazy things for the people they love, Hephaestus,” Gus said, then he blushed and paled almost simultaneously.
“What do you mean?” Hef asked.
“I—just—it’s—I’ve always thought she had a crush on you,” Gus tried to steer into the skid.
“You are mistaken,” Hef said. “She told me she could never date me,” he explained. “I know she is out of my league, so I never forced the issue.”
“Out of your—” Scaggs blurted in abject incredulity, but Gus shushed her with a hand on her arm and a subtle shake of his head when she looked. “I mean, yeah, of course she is. Yeah, out of your league…whatever.”
“Maybe she told you no because she thought Lola was in love with you,” Athena suggested, fingering her chin as this knew knowledge sank in. Gus narrowed his eyes at her in some meaningful signal that she shrugged away, but Calvin groaned and opened his eyes and everyone was distracted again.
No one noticed the battle raging within Hef as he tried to decide which stretcher he should be standing beside, the trained soldier who had charged onto a battlefield and brought him back to safety, or one of his best friends, the untrained girl, daintiest of princesses who had attempted to do the same thing and failed.
“What happened?” Calvin asked the gathered blurs in his vision.
“You were tasered,” Athena explained.
“Hef?”
“He’s here.”
“And…everyone else?” he asked from deep within a daze.
“Our group is fine. We’re not sure how many on the other side were hurt during the battle.”
“What battle?”
“The battle to rescue Hephaestus.”
“What happened?” he asked again.
“You were tasered.”
“Why?”
“Welcome to Camp Funston in the Q,” Athena kissed him on the forehead and rubbed his shoulder.
“The Q?” he asked quietly, slowly fading back into unconsciousness
“The Quarantine Zone.”
“Oh…”
“We’re safe now, my love. Sleep for a while; you have certainly earned it,” she whispered softly into his ear just before the comfortable darkness took him once again.
The End…
Table of Contents
An Innocent Flight
Shadow over the Parade
Doctor of Death
Boomer and Brick
Lucy and Lola
El Supremo and the Alley Shufflers
Of Knights, Armor and Friendship
Don’t count your Zombies until they’re Dead
Geeks and Goddesses
Into the Northland
The Toy Master
The Red Tower
The Liberty Memorial
It’s Always Faster Coming Down
A Touch of Madness
Two Smiths
City of Fountains
The Plaza
Nightmare within a Nightmare
Let’s go to the Mall, Today
Goodbye Doctor Death
Raytown: My Hometown
Meet the Rosenthals
Some Must Fall
S.O.S
Cowboys and Zombies
Confessions
Escape from Kansas City
Pitchforks, Torches and other Bad Decisions
Agro and Bio Defense
Flight to the Wall
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