by Holly Hart
"Don't worry about it." I smile, trying to relax my expression as much as I can so that she feels comfortable around me. Truth be told, the feeling of her arms clasped around my shoulders is nice – it's exactly what I need right now, and the last thing I want is for her to go anywhere.
"I didn't mean –" she starts, but I don't give her the opportunity to finish. "I know," I say, smoothing her hair back in a proprietorial, caring manner. She rests her head, chest, apparently satisfied that I'm okay with it, and before long I feel the thin cotton material in my hospital gown sticking against my chest, wet with her drying tears.
"Are you okay?" I ask, somewhat lamely. Like I said, I'm not good at the emotional stuff – but I'm doing my best. I give her a powerful, squeezing hug, hoping that at least she'll feel safe and protected.
"Yeah," she sniffs, not looking up. "Just –" her voice breaks, "just a long day, you know?"
She doesn't want to talk about it. I get that.
"What about you?" she asks. "You don't look too hot yourself?"
"No," I agree, "I've had better days… What a pair we make."
The comforting contact between our two bodies stands in complete contrast to the awkward, stilted conversation. I guess, thinking about it, that conversation can be like that – difficult, harder to manage than our base, animal instincts. I've thought about this sometimes, on a long patrol when your mind wanders, or sitting in a base at the top of some dusty hill for weeks on end – there's something comforting about physical contact.
It doesn't matter if it's with your brother, your sister, your girlfriend, or your buddies – all that matters is that you get it. Sometimes, on a really hard day, I envy wolves. Not the soft fur coat bit, and definitely not the padding around a cold and snowy forest bit, but definitely the bit where they pile on top of each other to keep warm.
That's what I'm gonna miss most about Tommy, just being able to give him a high five, or him patting me on the shoulder after we get back from patrol.
Just the little things.
Conversation, though, that’s a different kettle of fish. When you give your buddy a hug, there's not really too many ways he can interpret that, not many ways he can misunderstand you. Words are hard, though. Hard to say, and harder to get right.
"Do you need to sit down?" she finally asks, and I have to admit, my leg is in some serious pain right now. I've not been taking the painkillers they give me – don't want to scramble my head, don't like the way it feels, and Katie knows that.
"Yeah," I grudgingly agree – not wanting to break this hug. It's the best thing that’s happened to me since I got into this depressing hospital. The best thing since the last time I ended up with my arms clasped around Katie, anyway.
"Come on," she says, offering me her arm, "let me give you a hand." I don't need it, and we both know that – but like I said, words are hard. Actions, though, are simple. We limp over to my bed, and I sit down.
"Aren't you going to join me?" I ask, when she doesn't sit down next to me. She looks like she's going to say no, so I do my best to wheedle her out of it. "Come on," I say, "just for a minute – what's the harm?"
She takes another furtive little look around, and apparently doesn't see anyone around who could get her in trouble. It's just us left. She takes a seat next to me, leaning into my shoulder on my uninjured side. She’s warm, and soft, and I like it.
We sit silently together for a long time – I don't know exactly how long, the seconds seem to tick away in two minutes, and maybe even longer. After a while, out of nowhere, Katie starts talking to me. She doesn't sound like she wants a conversation; it's just like she's got something she needs to get off her chest – and I like hearing the sound of her voice, so I'm more than happy to oblige.
"I don't think I'm cut out for this, you know," she says, posing a rhetorical question. "I've been here for nine months now, and I just don't think I can take it for much longer. Every day there's something new, something horrible – and it's dragging me down. I felt like that when," her voice cracks, "when I ended up in your bed, and things haven’t changed…"
She pauses, and I wait – wondering if it's time to interject, whether I should just stay quiet and let her work through her problems. I choose the latter option; it doesn't feel like the right time, not yet.
"I don't know how you can do it. I don't know how you stay so strong, for so long. I'm not built for it. I thought working back in the states was hard, but at least we had good, clean hospitals there, and enough staff."
A visceral wave of anger sweeps through me – it's a reaction I know I shouldn't have. I barely know the girl whose warm body is currently, delightfully, sitting next to me – but regardless, the fact that someone or something is causing her pain is a factor feel I just can't tolerate, even if that someone or something is a mindless, faceless bureaucracy.
I know all about that, after all – I'm in the army. But she didn't sign up for what I did. I have every right to expect the treatment I get – a pair of broken night vision goggles getting taken off my paycheck at the end of the month, even if the reason they got broken was an enemy bullet, or the stores charging me twenty dollars for water bottle I can get on Main Street for a buck, because at the end of the day I knew what I was signing up for.
Katie didn't. She just wanted to help people, and what does she get? A filthy hospital, and not even enough warm bodies to keep the place running. My fists clench in an autonomic response, my body stiffening, the slight injection of adrenaline that comes as a natural consequence of anger providing an unexpected painkiller, soothing my aching, throbbing leg.
"I can't –" she starts, her voice breaking, fraught with emotion. "I can't wait till I can leave this place."
I put my arm on her shoulder, squeezing it, and she settles back into me for comfort. It's hard for me to stay as upright as normal – maybe it's because I can't tense my core properly without it hurting my legs, or maybe that's just an excuse I use, because I like the results. We fall backwards, or I fall backwards, and she comes with me, landing with a light thud on her back on the soft hospital bed.
"I'm sorry –"
"Are you alright?"
We both start speaking at once, checking on one another, and she's particularly worried. But neither of us make a move to get up, tacitly accepting the situation – that we’re now lying next to each other on the bed. Like I said, words are hard – actions are easy. And accidents – they're even easier.
"How long have you got left?" I ask, filling another long, comfortable silence. "Til you're out of here, I mean."
"Only three months. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have unloaded all my problems on you – you've got enough of your own, and you've probably got longer left anyway –" She breaks off, going slightly red. "I didn't mean it like that, I didn't mean to suggest…"
I leave her hanging for second, just long enough to watch her face getting redder and redder as she struggles with the thought that she's somehow insulted me by bringing up the memory of what happened to me out there.
"Are you embarrassed?" I ask with a grin. I know she is, I just want to hear her say it.
"Oh my God, so bad," she says, lowering her eyes and trying to hide from me.
"What for?" I ask, getting a frosty glare in response.
"You know, don't make me say it."
"Don't sweat it," I say grinning. "I'm a soldier, remember – trust me, if I was gonna get worked up about a little slip of the tongue like that, I wouldn't last very long out on deployment…"
"That's fair, I suppose," she says, subtly scooching slightly closer to me. "I didn't think of it like that."
We don't speak for a while, and Katie's breath slowly begins to lengthen, and calm, and after a little while of listening to the slow, metronomic sound, I don't have the heart to interrupt it and wake her up again. I get the feeling that she needs all the rest she can get right now, and I've got no intention of being the asshole who gets in the way, especially not right now. And there's
another reason, a more selfish one – I feel more relaxed right now than I have in months.
It's the first time for weeks that I've not felt on edge, either because someone's about to shoot me or because they already have.
It's easy to tell the exact moment she drifts off to sleep, because all the tension in her body evaporates, just like that. I lie next to her, arm wrapped round her shoulders, pulling her in so her head's resting on my chest. I'm not exactly sure when I drift off to sleep, but it's the first restful, dreamless sleep I've had in a long, long time.
Chapter Eight - Katie
The stench is unbearable.
And that's saying a lot, because I'm a nurse, and I have been for almost a decade – so you think I'd be pretty used to odious odors by now. Not only that, but I'm a nurse in a war zone – so I'm more than used to dealing with the cloying, sweet smell of badly injured wounds of the type you don't get in civilian hospitals. And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with this weird nausea I’ve been getting for the past few days.
No, when I say that the pound stinks, I'm completely, one hundred percent serious. I've got some buds of cotton wool in the pockets of my scrubs, and I'm screwing them up in my hand, ready to shove them into my nostrils as a makeshift anti-smell aid, when I have second thoughts. If these poor, forgotten dogs have to live in this filth, then the very least I can do is brave it for a few minutes.
Poor creatures.
The building itself is a squat, square, unprepossessing construction, and I actually walk past it once or twice without realizing. No sign marks it out – the authorities probably don't want people to know where, or what, it is, and I'm not surprised. I finally work it out by following my nose.
I push against a flimsy, unpainted wooden door after reassuring myself that there are no signs barring my entry. I walk into a small office, a room that seems positively weighed down by the stacks upon stacks of paper piled up in corners, the overflowing piles of dog food spilling out of boxes pushed haphazardly into corners, and wherever else whoever works out of the office can find an inch of space, and I almost feel sorry for the old desktop computer I spy on top of an equally filthy desk, noticing the crumb-strewn keyboard and its oil-smudged screen.
If even the office isn't fit for purpose, then I dread to think what the kennels are going to be like.
"Hello?" I call, hoping that someone will appear from the back. No response. I walk slightly further into the office, daintily stepping over a spilled box of unused dog toys that someone's knocked over and not bothered to replace. In a tent city of military precision, this building stands out as an anomaly – and I don't like it, not one little bit.
"Helloooo?" I call out, louder this time – but still receive the same, insulting response of crushing silence. Shouldn't this place have staff? Don't the dogs need taking care of? The plaintive howls of what sounds like at least half a dozen dogs is the only reply I get, and the sad, wailing tone is almost too much for my heart to bear.
I stand, arm resting on one of the only unspoiled surfaces in the room – a small reception-like counter overlooking the desk, and idly presume that the only reason it's clean is because it's not actually wide enough for anyone to stack mess on. A thought strikes me, and at first I resist it, after all – it's not my job, but my conscience screams at me until I give in.
Surreptitiously looking around for any sign of a CCTV camera, I slip my cellphone out of my pocket, swipe my finger across the screen, and call up the camera app. It's not the best camera in the world, but it doesn't need to be, not for what I need to do with it. Cocking an ear and listening out for any sign that the office's occupant, or perhaps a better term would be denizen, is returning, I raise the camera to arm level and start snapping shots.
I zoom in on the piles of dog food in the corner, making sure the camera lens zooms in on the flies buzzing around the office. It's a shame, I think to myself, that scientists haven't invented a technique of capturing smells, because if they did, then gathering the evidence I need would surely be easier.
I make my way around the desk, curling my lip in disgust as I see unwashed plates of food stacked up in an ungainly pile – at least a week's worth, maybe even two, judging by the green, encroaching mold. I make sure to take a picture.
There's a door on the other side of the small office, and I quietly turn the handle, abandoning any pretense that I'm hoping to bump into whoever works here. I'm half considering just taking the dogs and running, that's how bad the smell is, though god knows what that would do for my career. Still, I suppose, maybe it'd be killing two birds with one stone – after all, I don't want to be out here in the desert anymore anyway…
It looks like a warehouse, but it's plunged in darkness, so it's hard to see what's inside other than by using the light of the glowing fire exit sign. Nevertheless, my stomach shrinks in my belly as my hand moves towards the light switch, because I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to find out.
Click.
Forewarned might be forearmed, but even so, I'm wholly unprepared for what I see. In front of me, about fifteen tall metal cages stretch off to the other side of the warehouse on either side of a long concrete walkway. The action of flicking on the lights awakens a howling chorus of dogs, and that haunting, shivering sound is interspersed only by something that's, if anything, even worse – the sound of jangling metal as half a dozen dogs, each starved of love, affection and attention, charge towards the metal fence gates at the front of their cages, only to be cut short by the insidious blockage in their path.
I rush to the nearest cage, reckless in my desire to give the poor animals some solace, forgetting to even check whether anyone else is in the warehouse with me. I think it’s unlikely, though, given the place is completely dark.
The dog's name is written on a small white sticker sitting slightly askew on a flat piece of metal forming part of the locking mechanism.
"Hey, Charlie," I say, and the big Alsatian's ears prick up when he hears me say his name, his demeanor changing in an instant from slightly aggressive and wary to happy and almost puppyishly excited. I feel a powerful, hateful surge of anger when I think of these poor, powerless dogs sitting on their own in the dark, waiting for someone to come and cuddle them, and judging by the looks of this place – probably waiting in vain.
"How you doing, puppy?" I ask as Charlie rushes to the wire fence. He looks thin, not what I would have expected for a dog of his size, and a pang of worry rushes through me – are they being physically mistreated, as well as mentally? It sure looks like it from where I'm standing. Still, none of Charlie's natural caring, playful instincts have been extinguished – not yet, anyway – and he pushes his head against the wire fence as I reach a couple of fingers through to scratch him behind the ears.
"You like that, buddy?" I ask, and he purrs throatily in response. "Sure you do."
The sound of all the other dogs howling in dismay becomes a soundtrack to everything I do, and I look over my shoulder, fingers still reaching through Charlie's wire fence to give him the love he needs. As I look round, I see that some of the other dogs are in far worse shape than he is.
"Sorry, bud, I gotta go," I say, snapping a quick shot of Charlie's cage, which is completely empty – barring a small metal water bowl, itself empty. Other than that, the concrete floor is only marked by piles of Charlie's own mess, which I notice with shock hasn't been cleared up, and has clearly been there for some time. It's disgraceful, I think – how can these dogs be kept like this when the rest of the time they're supposed to be fighting our war. At least soldiers have the right to complain; these poor guys don't even get that.
Charlie whines in dismay as I leave, and I think with sadness that I'm probably the only friendly voice he’s heard in weeks, but a plan’s forming in my head. I have no intention of leaving him here, not for good, anyway.
"Don't worry, little buddy, I'll be back," I croon reassuringly, turning to explore the rest of the horrific facility. That's what
it is – not a kennel, but a facility.
I go to the kennel opposite, snapping a picture of an injured dog with a dressing around its paw. As it comes to the front of its cage, I notice it's hopping, not even daring to put any weight on its last leg. "Oh my god," I whisper under my breath as I notice, shocked, that the bandage around the dog's foot is yellow with seeping pus. If he was one of my patients, I'd have ordered that his dressing be changed at least twice a day, but this clearly hasn't been looked at for three days, or maybe even more. Just because he's a dog doesn't mean he should be treated like this – far from it.
Toby's water bowl is empty, too.
Daisy's still got a dribble of water left in hers, but when I go to the front of her kennel, she just looks at me with deep, sad eyes and refuses to get up – if I were a betting girl, I'd put good money on her being depressed.
Cooper's bowl – empty.