by L. T. Ryan
“I’m gonna lose my leg.”
“I know. I’m sorry, man.”
“Why did my last jump have to be at night?”
Turk forced a smile and placed his hand on Sean’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Then he cracked the door and bright sunlight flooded the tunnel, setting his eyes on fire and killing his vision. He blinked a few times and shielded his eyes from the sun while they adjusted to the light. He almost wished they hadn’t, because the sight before him gave him little hope for them escaping alive. He pushed the door shut, turned around and leaned back against it. He brought his palms to his face and rubbed his stubbled head.
“Think you can still shoot?” Turk asked.
“I can probably manage,” Sean said, using the wall to help him stand up.
“Here.” Turk handed Sean his MP7. “Anything approaches, squeeze the trigger.” He handed him an extra magazine before turning back toward the door. “I don’t care what it looks like, Sean. Kill it.”
He half expected the fifty or so zombies he saw outside to rush toward the tunnel when he pushed the door open again. But they didn’t. They didn’t even seem to care that he and Sean were in the doorway. They all stood with their backs to the men, facing the rising sun. Their bodies were arched, their arms wide, and their faces turned up toward the sky. Turk wondered if the action was some sort of spiritual cleansing for the damned.
He took note of their positions, then he raised his rifle and aimed at the closest zombie.
“Don’t,” Ryder said.
“What?”
“Wait.”
“Why?”
“Help me through the door.” Ryder held out his right arm.
Turk reached over to support Sean as he limped through the doorway. “What are we doing, Ryder?”
“Listen.”
Turk angled his head, but didn’t hear anything. He shrugged and shook his head as he looked back at Sean.
“We need to move away from the door,” Sean said.
“That’s going to put us out in the open, closer to them.”
“I know,” Sean said. “Just do it.”
Turk wrapped his left arm around Sean and helped him move away from the facility’s entrance. They traveled ten feet, then Sean said, “Hear it?”
Turk squinted and angled his head while scanning the crowd of zombies who were still distracted by the morning sun and blue sky. Or were they in awe of it?
As if he had read Turk’s thoughts, Sean said, “It’s not the sun. It’s the planes. They hear and feel them.”
Planes. Bombers.
“Sean, we gotta get moving. Fast. Those are the bombers, and they’re headed straight for us.”
“The sound must resonate with them. Soothe their soul, so to speak,” Ryder said.
“I don’t care,” Turk said. “As long as they don’t care about us.”
They moved away from the crowd of the afflicted that gathered between the entrance and the makeshift graveyard. Not a single one of them looked back at the two men.
“They don’t even know we’re here,” Turk said.
“Maybe it’s too bright,” Sean said. “No shadows. I think they respond to our—”
“Whatever. We’re making a break for it.” Turk hoisted Sean up to a fireman’s carry and began to head for the hill. The planes were close. He tossed a glance over his shoulder to see if he had visible contact with them yet. There was still no sign of them, other than the sound of their approach. Turk’s eyes scanned the group of zombies one last time, then shifted to the graveyard. What he saw made him pause. “Jesus Christ. Sean, look.”
“What?” Ryder said.
“The graveyard.”
“Jesus.”
A hand stuck out from the dirt, its fingers pointing straight up. Then an arm pushed through, even further out of the ground, almost to the shoulder. Another hand emerged, followed by the top of a head, then eyes and a nose and, finally, a complete face. The same thing happened at a second grave, and then a third. Within seconds, half the dirt mounds had bodies pushing up through the disturbed earth. Perhaps the phrase zombies had been more accurate than Turk had realized.
“Move,” Sean said.
Turk pushed harder and faster with every step, reaching the top of the hill in less time than they had taken to descend it the night before. They went over the ridge, and he set Sean down and reached for his satellite and cellular telephones. He turned to hand one to Sean, but the man had passed out. Turk pushed down a single number on each phone and waited for the first person to pick up. His CO answered. Turk explained that he and Ryder were out, but that Sean needed medical attention as soon as possible or he’d die. His CO told him to leave his satellite phone on. They had a team close by who would locate them through the phone’s GPS chip, which acted like a beacon and provided Turk’s location in case of an emergency. Then, he told him to get moving, because the bombers were only minutes away.
Turk lifted Sean over his shoulder, picked a line, and started running. He sprinted faster and harder and longer than he ever had in his life. He didn’t dare stop. He didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know that the bombers had arrived. The first explosion gave that away.
Turk yelled as each subsequent bomb screeched through the air and pummeled the ground with devastating impact. He felt the earth shake and ripple under his feet. How close would the bombs get to their position? Did the pilots know that two U.S. soldiers were on the ground? Would they make it out of this alive?
All the pain Turk felt, his burning lungs and aching legs and cramping muscles, none of it made a difference after the bomb landed too close to him and Sean. The initial impact did not affect them, but the subsequent blast wave did. The sudden burst of hot air traveling at over one hundred miles per hour knocked Turk off his feet, sending him through the air and jarring Sean loose from his grip.
Turk landed violently, first on the back of his head, then his spine. He bounced a few feet in the air and his body twisted and he was slammed onto his side. He skid five or ten feet before coming to a stop face down in the dirt. The last thing he saw before passing out was Sean’s bloody leg landing five feet in front of him, sending a cloud of dust two feet into the air.
Eighteen
“Stay with us, Ryder.”
Sean opened his eyes and saw two faces hovering over him. He figured out he was inside a helicopter by the thumping of the rotors and the whine of the turbine. But why was he there, lying on his back?
“We’re gonna take care of you.” He couldn’t tell which of them said it. Their faces were dark and indistinguishable and contrasted sharply with the bright light behind their heads.
Sean barely heard the words, although he could tell the man was no more than eighteen inches away. If not for the constant thumping and whining created by the helicopter, he would have been concerned that he’d lost his hearing. He tried to turn his head to the left, but found himself unable to do so. Then he tried to lift his head, but couldn’t. He’d been immobilized. His training had taught him there was one reason for that. He broke into a cold sweat. They were concerned about his neck. Why, though? Had he broken it? Had he not managed to deploy his reserve chute after his main failed to launch, and somehow he’d survived the impact, but had broken his neck?
Sean searched his mind in an effort to recall the last thing he saw before waking up in the chopper.
The sun blinded him. It exploded in front of him. But, was it the sun? He had been outside and there was a flash of light. His body was launched through the air ten or fifteen or twenty feet. He flew, his body twisting, turning, slamming into the ground. He landed on his back with tremendous force. Had he shattered his spine? No, that much he knew. He recalled moving, if only a bit, in an effort to check on Turk.
Turk!
What had happened to the SEAL?
“T-T-Turk,” Sean said.
“Save your strength, Sergeant,” one of the men said.
“Where’s Turk?”<
br />
Neither man replied. They looked at one another without giving Sean’s question the attention it deserved. He asked several more times. They continued to ignore him. He decided to wait before asking again. Someone had to know and that person would tell him. Until then, he had to focus on remaining awake so that he could stay alive. Sleep could mean shock. And, judging by the pain in his left leg, shock would mean death if the wound was as bad as he thought it was.
“Cold,” Sean said.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” the man said. “I’ve started a transfusion.”
Combat doc, Sean thought. He didn’t recognize the man, but his thoughts were jumbled and he didn’t know if the two had worked together before or not.
“I’m going to level with you, Ryder,” the man said. “I don’t know if we’re going to be able to save your leg. But it was heads up on your part applying the tourniquet to it. Saved your life, man. When you’re better, you’ll have to tell me how you managed to do that after stepping on an IED.”
There was too much recognition in the way the man spoke to him. How did this man know Sean? He was certain he had never seen him before. What was he talking about, stepping on an IED? He’d been hit by a bomb. A bomb dropped by a U.S. plane. It wasn’t the bomb that took his leg, it was a damn zombie.
“Zombie,” Sean said.
The men looked down at him, their faces disappearing again as their heads blocked out the light.
“What?” one of them said.
“No IED,” Sean said. “And it was Turk who saved me. I didn’t have,” he paused and forced himself to swallow, “I had no strength.”
The men looked up and nodded at each other. One twisted at the waist and returned with a needle. He stuck it in Sean’s shoulder and pressed on the plunger.
Sean felt fire blaze through his arm as the fluid coursed through his veins. Inch by inch, his body went numb, starting with his arm, then spreading across his chest and down his abdomen. The heat turned to cold, traveled up his neck, surrounded his head. His eyelids grew heavier with every blink he took as the agent penetrated his brain. Finally, his eyes shut and remained closed. The thumping of the rotor and the whine of the turbine were drowned out, and Sean went to sleep.
The quiet and still surprised Sean when he woke up. Had the shock and blood loss been too much? Was he dead? He tried to move his head and his hands and his feet. Pain flooded his body, confirming that he had not died. One nightmare had ended, and another one had begun. The nerves in his left leg were on fire, at least to a spot above his knee. Below that, he felt nothing. His lungs and chest ached with every breath he took, leading him to believe that he had multiple broken ribs. His head was no longer restrained, and he shook it slowly side-to-side. He tried to speak, but was unable to.
“Doctor,” a female voice said with a Nigerian accent. “He’s moving.”
“Christ,” a man with the same accent said. “Someone get the anesthetist in here. I thought they took care of this on the way here.”
Sean forced his heavy eyelids open. He was greeted by a bright halo of light that washed out his vision. He made out shapes along his left and right, but could not see where he was.
“Sir,” the man said. “My name is Doctor Adebayo. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we are in the process of amputating your leg. The men that brought you here explained to me that you are a highly trained medical technician in the United States Air Force. So what I’m about to tell you should make sense. We thought you were anesthetized prior to being delivered to us.”
A memory struck Sean and he recalled one of the men in the helicopter injecting something into his arm. He’d passed out right afterward and, as far as he could tell, had been under until he woke up here. Perhaps the antidote that Turk had injected him with while they were still inside the facility had something to do with the anesthesia not working properly? He opened his mouth to say something to that effect, but the doctor continued.
“For some reason, you’ve come out of it. I’ve already removed the tourniquet and prepped your leg for amputation. I have to proceed at once, or we run the risk of your blood pressure elevating too high and remaining there, leading to you bleeding out or having a stroke on the table. If I don’t begin now, you will die. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Sean took a moment to process the doctor’s words. His leg was gone. He knew that before he escaped from the halls of that underground hell, where he thought he was going to die. He’d felt okay when he believed he’d end up dead. In some ways, he almost preferred to die rather than live his life with one leg. If not for the memories of his wife Kathy and daughter Emma, he might have struggled against the team of medical staff that surrounded him. But he had to leave alive. He had to be there for his family.
Warm tears flooded his eyes and fell down the sides of his face in a constant stream. A heavy leather strap was placed over his waist and cinched down, drawing him tight to the bed. Fingers brushed up against his palms and wrapped around his wrist. Hands pressed down against his shoulders, pinning him down. A woman leaned over him, blocking out the bright light that now silhouetted her. She forced a smile, but his pain was reflected in her eyes. Or was it pity that she showed him? She used one hand to pinch his face near the corners of his jaw, forcing his mouth open. She maintained her grip, then, with her free hand, inserted what Sean assumed was a bite stick.
They were going to begin the amputation without anesthesia.
“This is going to hurt worse than anything you’ve ever felt,” the doctor said.
If he could have spoken, Sean would have offered an argument to the man. As far as he was concerned, nothing could be more painful than placing the barrel of your gun against your best friend’s head and pulling the trigger. And, perhaps, this was Sean’s penance for doing so.
The doctor continued. “We’ll have you under anesthesia as soon as possible, but I cannot wait any longer to begin.”
He started the bone saw, an oscillating saw equipped with a diamond tipped blade, emitting a high pitched whirr. Sean didn’t lift his head, but he imagined that the saw was one of the larger models. He knew that hundreds of years ago amputations had been performed on the battlefield using manual saws. This thought left him feeling fortunate that his procedure would be over in a matter of a few minutes.
The doctor slipped out of the lower range of Sean’s field of vision. Sean prepared himself for what was to come. He bit down on the rod between his teeth and squeezed the hands next to his at his side. He saw a pained look flash across one man’s face. Then he saw disgust across the other man’s face. The woman behind him stroked his hair with one hand as she held the straps affixed to each end of the bite stick with her other hand, keeping the rod firmly in place between Sean’s teeth.
The diamond tipped blade met Sean’s femur with a sickening screech. His body tried to jolt upward, but the leather belt and strong hands and arms kept him rooted to the operating table. His gargled screams drowned out the sound of the bone saw as it tore through the few remaining scraps of meat, muscle and tendons covering his femur. The saw worked in a single constant action, and the doctor maintained enough pressure to drive it downward, severing the thick bone in two.
The woman behind him and the man to his left separated, and an older woman appeared in between them. Her ashen, wrinkled skin told Sean that she’d been in the hospital for a number of years, and had probably seen worse injuries than his. But the look on her face told him that she’d never seen a man being put through an amputation while awake and aware. She spoke, but Sean didn’t listen. If he could have talked at that moment, he would have told her that she was too late, but she was welcome to stick around for a bit. Mercifully, she inserted a needle into his neck, presumably to speed up the process of the anesthesia shutting off the nerve center in his brain from the rest of his body.
The halo of light closed in above Sean. The dark faces shrunk and disappeared as the outer edges of his vision turned gray, t
hen black. Starting with his hands and feet, his body became numb. A welcome relief as the sensation traveled through his legs. A moment before he lost all sensation, he thought that he felt a tiny prick in his left thigh. He wondered if she had injected another agent into his leg. Although, it could have been the bone saw.
The light faded out, as did the voices and sounds in the room. Sean entered a blackened space, where tall grasses swayed in a gentle breeze, brushing against his palm as he walked toward the images of his wife and daughter.
Nineteen
A week passed by in less than ten minutes for Sean. They kept him sedated for the most part, an effort to help with the initial healing of the amputated limb. If he was asleep, he wouldn’t move. It also meant fewer pain medications, allowing his body to work as it needed to in order to heal the wound in as short a time as possible. His time awake was filled with doctors and nurses, an ambulance, and a plane.
He woke up in considerable pain and with no idea where he was. The room was quite different to the one he recalled being in the day before. He glanced to his right where a sliver of light sneaked into the room through an opening between heavy gray drapes. It took him a moment to realize that it was snowing outside. He knew he wasn’t in southern Nigeria anymore. Had they transported him across the Atlantic? Was he in Walter Reed?
He looked to his left. Tears flooded his eyes at the two beautiful faces staring back at him. Through most of the ordeal inside the facility, Sean had been able to suppress his thoughts and feelings about his wife and daughter. Sean had always figured that thinking too much of his loved ones was a sure fire way to get himself killed. That’s why he’d always kissed the picture of them before the start of a mission, and tucking the photo away put them out of his mind, at least until it was safe enough for him to think about them again.
“Kathy,” Sean said. “Emma.”
His wife stood and picked up their daughter, leaning her over Sean to give him a hug. Sean reached up with both arms, wrapping one around Emma, and the other around Kathy. For the first time in more than a week, he felt at peace. Then, he began to cry. He wept for Jules, and the SEAL team, and the tortured souls that were forever trapped in that underground lair of death.