by Terry Yates
After the first month or two, he had become fond of the island and the people on it. Shelley Dixon had been one of his first patients. She and her husband, Marcus, a military corporal, were pregnant. He was black and she was white, which was probably why Millard let him take care of them, because they were expecting twins, and Millard seemed to be a bit like Potts in the freethinker department. The two of them had ended up being bitten, as well as their infant, Oliver. Only little Kayla made it through the ordeal unscathed.
He thought of all of the ones that had died on the island. Locklear and Ariella O’Hearley, Gringo and Samantha Boots, Sylvia Morrison, Rob and Leanne Olsen, as well as Leanne Olsen’s mother, who suffered terminal cancer, or Burt and Martin Burns, plus Gibson, Hawkins, Sgt. Cohen, and of course, Nurse Walling, the first and only nurse he’d ever had, and the bravest human being he had ever met. She was right up there with Potts in the fearless department.
At the moment, he felt as if he were standing on the threshold of Hell, backwards with his heels hanging over the side, and having no idea how high a precipice he was standing on, just knowing he was about to fall backward into the abysmal unknown, and he was scared shitless about it. The only thing that kept him from falling to the ground, rolling up in a ball, sticking his thumb in his mouth, and crying like a baby, was the fact that Potts had seemed to have enough faith in him to put a four month resident over several more experienced men…depending, of course, on how one looks at experience. True, these men had more experience with operating than he did, he’d only performed one true operation, and that was on Lauren O’Hearley, whose face was now yellow, but he’d performed it under harrowing circumstances, and at least she was alive and well…for the most part anyway.
Potts and the others were standing about fifty feet away from the compound, Potts with hands on hips, was looking back at Kyler.
“It’s time, Kyler,” Potts said, taking a cigar out of his pocket, followed by a single match. Potts placed his thumb on the match-head, and with one thrust, the match was lit. Goddamn, he was the coolest son-of-a-bitch that he’d ever met.
“Okay,” Kyler said, breaking the silence and turning to the three other doctors. “The ones walking around are the bite victims and the ones in the beds are non-bite victims. Am I right?”
“What’s going on, Doctor?” Lt. Wilson asked.
“Am I right?”
“You’re right, Doctor,” Pritchard answered.
“The non-bite victims are our main concern right now.”
“Why?” Leo Proudfoot asked.
“We have to separate them from the others. I’m sure you’ve noticed that the bite victims have pretty much healed and then some. This…pen…is not going to hold them, and I’m afraid once they’ve figured that out, they are going to be hard to deal with. Another thing. Some turn quicker than others, although a werewolf won’t attack a…future werewolf, but it will the non-bite victims, so we have to…”
“Werewolf?” Wilson sneered. “You don’t seriously expect us to believe that these people were attacked by…I can’t say it.”
Kyler looked at Pritchard and Proudfoot who both looked as if they thought that Kyler believed what he said, but were having a hard time swallowing it.
“Well, you better learn how to say it, Gentlemen,” he told them matter of fact.
“But a…” Proudfoot started.
“Werewolf, Gentlemen. Werewolf. Get used to it. What do you think attacked these people…or those in Los Angeles? Why don’t you go ask Col. Potts what happened to his face. Ask Zack Olsen and Lauren O’Hearley, two orphaned children in our care, what happened to their families. Gentlemen, everything you ever thought about anything will change tomorrow night if that moon goes full like it’s supposed to. We’re lucky we have another day to find some place more secure to put the bite victims, because they’ll tear this place apart. Again, the non-bite victims are our concern right now. Has anyone died?”
“Two last night,” Wilson answered. “An old man and a young boy.”
“It was Stan Bergeron and little Austin Running-Dear,” Pritchard told them, shooting Lt. Wilson as disgusting a look as he could possibly muster.
“Is anyone critical?”
“One,” Proudfoot answered. “A young girl of about twelve or thirteen. She’s over there.”
Proudfoot pointed to one of the beds in the far corner of the compound, where he could see a young girl who appeared to be asleep.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Kyler asked, still looking at the girl.
“That thing almost ripped her insides out of her stomach. We’ve got her stitched up pretty well, but the antibiotics we’ve been giving her don’t seem to be helping. We keep a drip going on her and two of the other claw victims.”
“Okay then,” Kyler started, “Dr. Pritchard, you come with me. Dr. Proudfoot, you and the Lieutenant go together. Let’s bind the wounds as best we can, then we’ll get some of the soldiers to help us move them out. Okay?”
“What about the others?” Pritchard asked.
“We’ll get to them later, Doctor…”
“But I delivered about three-quarters of these people, including the little girl, whose name by the way is Sarah Lewis.
“We’ll get to everyone, Dr. Pritchard,” Kyler told him in an attempt to calm the man.
“That’s a promise, Bill,” Proudfoot finished, placing his hand on the much taller man’s shoulder.
“Shall we, Doctors?” Kyler bade, hand extended, in front of the chain-link gate.
A soldier moved to the gate, took a key out of his breast pocket, and stuck it in the shiny new lock. There was a click, immediately followed by the soldier swinging the gate outward in front of the doctors, who walked into the enclosure escorted by two male soldiers, each armed with rifles. Several of the bite victims quickly whirled around at the sound of the group entering the area. As soon as they did, the two soldiers stopped and faced them, their rifles still against their chests. The doctors gave a cautionary turn toward them, but seeing the soldiers between them caused them to relax, except for Kyler, who kept doing double takes as the men made their way to the claw victims.
CHAPTER 54
Potts, cigar in mouth and hands on hips, stood watching the doctors as they moved from one patient to the other. FranAnne, Jefferson, Baine, Mary Sue Carter, and Joe flanked him on both sides. Joe’s hackles were still raised, and his growls were still low, his eyes never leaving the bite victims as they wandered around. Potts wasn’t sure, but there were a few times that Joe growled extremely lowly, and he swore that an old man inside the pen, turned to them as if he’d heard it. The problem was that the man had to be almost seventy or eighty feet away from them, but still turned every time that the dog emitted a growl.
“Hell, shit, fire…Colonel!” Mary Sue exclaimed, finally breaking the silence, and looking over at him. “What the HELL is going on?”
She stood to Potts’ left, which was his good side. They weren’t too far apart in height, so she could see that his one eye was extremely blue. Still looking at the pen, Potts blew out a huge cloud of smoke that engulfed the entire group. When he turned to her, she could see that his eye was even bluer.
“Pvt. Fulton,” Potts spoke lowly, never taking his eyes off of Mary Sue.
“Sir!” FranAnne answered moving up next to him.
“Private Fulton, was I not clear enough when I asked you to see to Sheriff Carver here?”
“Carter,” Mary Sue snapped. For her part, Mary Sue managed to focus both of her angry eyes on his one, almost proud of herself for not looking at the damaged side of his face.
“I don’t give a shit,” he told her, his voice becoming louder, and his face growing ever closer to Mary Sue, causing her to flinch, and lose the battle of the angry eyes, and actually take a half step backward. “Carter, Carver, Calvert, again, I don’t give a shit right now. Pvt. Fulton, take this woman and take her to the ammo trucks, and find some clips for that Glock she’s got strapped
to her, and while you’re there, fill her in on everything, tell her whatever you want to tell her, you have my permission. Is that understood, Pvt. Fulton?”
“Sir!” FranAnne answered loudly, moving to Mary Sue’s side.
“Good, because there’s nothing lower than private, but I swear to God I’ll rip those stripes off you unless you get this woman out of my face now. Understood?”
“Sir!” a now embarrassed FranAnne answered. “Ma’am, she said, now looking at Mary Sue with an almost pleading look on her face.
“Okay, Pvt. Fulton,” Mary Sue replied softly, trying to hold back her angry tears.
FranAnne nodded and began to walk away, Mary Sue close on her heels.
“Why does the sheriff need to change her ammo, Colonel?” Blaine asked.
“What?” Potts was still watching FranAnne and Mary Sue walk away.
“The special ammo. Sir.”
“What in shits sake are you talking about, Captain?” Potts retorted, turning to the man.
“You said something about trucks with special ammo.”
“Yes, the special ammo…the silver bullets.”
“Silver bullets?”
“Yes, the goddamn silver bullets! Are your ears painted on, Captain?”
Potts glared at the man, wondering whose knob this guy twisted to become a captain. Don’t ask. Don’t fuckin’ tell. As Potts glowered, it soon became obvious to him that Baine had absolutely NO idea what he was talking about.
“Do you mean to tell me, Captain, and I use the term temporarily, that you received no orders concerning adding silver to your bullets?”
“Colonel, I swear to God, the only orders we received were about separating the patients. We’ve had a lot of communication problems out here since all the shit went down.”
“So, those two privates inside that fence have regular cartridges in those rifles.”
“Well…yessir.”
Potts put his hand to his bandage, and rubbed his temple, which was about the only thing left on that side of his face still intact.
“Captain,” Potts said softly, still rubbing his temple, while simultaneously reaching over with his left hand and unsnapping his holster. “Take several soldiers at a time to our ammo trucks. There should be plenty there to fill almost any gun, military or otherwise. We have a few non-military weapons in there as well. DEA gave ‘em to us…confiscated from drug runners, mobsters, and gangs, I guess. Most of my men know how to use them. If you or any of yours do, feel free to use them. Coppice?”
“Colonel…”
“Captain, go now…now!”
Potts had delivered the last ‘now’ through clenched teeth. Baine straightened up and saluted, which was half-heartily returned by Potts. As Baine turned to leave, Potts grabbed his bicep, and pulled him to him.
“Keep this on the QT, understand? Just see that everyone’s ammo’d up, and that they return to their posts.”
“Yessir!” Baine barked as he walked quickly away.
Potts felt the flap on his holster as he turned to the gate. As he approached it, he nodded to the soldier with the key. Once again, the soldier retrieved the key from his buttoned breast pocket, placed it in the lock, turned and opened it.
“Leave it unlocked,” Potts told the man as he moved through the gate.
Potts hardly noticed the man nod as he entered the enclosure. He had to keep his head almost completely turned to the right to be able to keep his eye on the bite victims who were continually walking around, some as if they were doped up, while others as if they were extremely agitated.
He looked to his left to see Proudfoot and Wilson on each side of a hospital bed. A middle-aged man, half of his chest gone, was attempting to speak through his pain. An IV drip, with what Potts was guessing was morphine, stood next to the bed. He saw that Kyler and Pritchard were attending a young man, probably in his mid-twenties, whose shoulder appeared to be gone.
“Hey!” Potts whispered, coming up behind the two guards.
“Sir,” both men replied in unison.
As Potts pulled up next to the men, they started to salute.
“At ease…at ease…” Potts continued whispering, using his hands to tell the men to lower theirs, which they immediately did.
“I want you men to go around to the front of the hospital where the trucks we came in on are, and find Capt. Baine. Understood?”
The two men nodded.
“Good, then come right back. It’s going to be a lonesome couple of minutes in here. Go…and take the sentry over there with you, but leave the gate unlocked. Move.”
“Sir,” both men answered, as they turned and walked slowly as if nothing were wrong, leaving Potts, hand on holster, alone with about twenty of the bite victims. Potts was now faced with the inevitable. He might have to kill innocent men, women, and children. It had been easy on the island, because they killed the werewolves after they had turned…never before. Potts had made his mind up that if Kyler and the other doctors didn’t come up with a cure or a more secure enclosure, there was no way that he was going to allow any of them to turn. He’d live with the consequences and the nightmares later. He was beginning to wonder what tomorrow would bring. If they were this weird now, he dreaded what they might be doing tomorrow.
Kyler had finished bandaging what was left of the man’s shoulder, fixed him a morphine drip, then stood up. He took a cautionary look over his shoulder, and did a double take. There was Potts, back turned, with his right hand on his holster.
“What are you doing?” he asked loudly.
“Shut your ass, Kyler,” Potts answered, not turning around.
“What…”
“Hurry up, Kyler.”
“Where are the two…”
“Jesus tap dancing Christ.”
Kyler could see that Potts was shaking his head at the ground.
“Dr. Kyler,” Pritchard said, trying to defuse the situation. “I’ve got a feeling that the Colonel has a good reason for wanting us to be moving along. He doesn’t seem to be the type of man who just likes to converse “
“You got that right, Brother,” Kyler returned, still looking at Potts and now noticing that several of the bite victims, roughly two men, an old woman, and a little boy were roaming dangerously close to him. By now, Potts’ hand had slid down onto the gun itself.
Kyler took one last look at Potts, then he and Pritchard slowly walked to Sarah Lewis’ bed, which had been placed a little ways from the rest of the claw victims. Even with her head turned away from him, Kyler could tell that her eyes were closed. While Pritchard stayed on the left side of the bed, Kyler moved around to the right, where he could see the twelve-year-old’s face. He could tell by her skin tone that she had either Indian or Hispanic blood in her. She wasn’t as dark as the Indians he’d seen, so he guessed there was also some white blood in there. Whatever her ethnicity, to Kyler, she looked like a sleeping angel. Kyler wasn’t a father, but he guessed that whatever man sired this little doll, was more than likely wrapped around her little finger several times.
He pulled up a chair that had been placed by the bed, and placed it on the square of plywood that someone had the good sense to place next to the beds, otherwise the chairs would sink into the ground. He gave one last cautionary look at Potts, who appeared to have not moved a single inch, while the four bite victims, and now a fifth, a middle aged black man, had joined the movement that was wandering ever closer to Potts.
Kyler turned his attention back to the young girl, who was heavily sedated.
“Dr. Pritchard,” Kyler started lowly, “let’s see some of your handiwork here.”
“I didn’t have a lot of time, Dr. Kyler. It was more like meatball surgery.”
“Sort of like on M*A*S*H, huh? Just get ‘em in and out.”
“Yes.”
“Where’s her family?” Kyler asked as he lifted the girl’s gown.
“They’re all dead,” Pritchard answered after a moment of silence. “Those animals ki
lled her parents and her two sisters…all patients of mine during their lifetimes.”
Kyler felt for the doctor, because he was what a doctor should be…a person whose job it was to take care of several generations of patients, retire, and sit on the beach singing Jimmy Buffet tunes, or maybe fishing on the banks of the little lake that sits a few hundred feet behind your beautiful, wooden, retirement home. You do you part. That’s it. Dr. Phillips had taught him that in med school. No one patient was any better or worse than any other patient. You took care of them all.
Kyler placed the girl’s gown just under her chin and looked at Dr. Pritchard’s handiwork. To have been in a hurry and to be at least sixty years old, the man did a good job of taking care of this little girl. He could see a half-dozen staples starting from her sternum and disappearing into the large, gauze bandage, which covered her entire stomach. Jesus, what were those things trying to do to her. He knew the answer to his own question. He’s seen what Opal Munn had done to her grandson, Wilbur when she’d turned.
Kyler gently pulled back the tape, which kept the gauze in place, and lowered the bandage. Kyler was confused. What he’d heard had happened to the girl, were two completely different diagnoses. Where he’d been told that the girl’s wound was the size of a basketball, it was now about the size of a fist…a small fist. He could see the red scarring that a wound or a scab leaves when it heals faster than normal. The wound had been enormous, but here it was, almost healed.
“I don’t understand, Dr. Kyler,” Pritchard spoke, his voice quivering.
“I think I do, Doctor,” Kyler came back, his confusion having been only momentary.
Kyler placed his right hand on the girl’s forehead, then turned her head toward him. He looked up at Dr. Pritchard, who turned his gaze from the child to Kyler, whose entire face was covered with an expression of dread.
Kyler placed his thumb under the girl’s left eyelid, and then took a deep breath.