Base

by Cathleen Ross

  A soft moan echoed on the breeze, so light she wondered if she’d really heard it. Ruth stopped and looked around, peering carefully into the bushland on her left. Fear rippled along her spine. An old war bunker surrounded by a wire fence stood almost covered by ferns and scrub. Something clanked inside the bunker. Ruth’s heart slammed in her chest. Georges Heights was full of old military tunnels. Had Jack had them cleared? Surely a man as cautious as Jack would have seen to this. Before the virus hit, most were locked but the fence gate was open, the broken padlock hanging from a chain. ‘Anyone there?’ Her fingers clenched around her stake so that her knuckles turned white. No answer. Not a groan. Nothing. No bloody way was she going in that uninviting looking dark hole to investigate. A new sense of respect deepened for Jack and his men. Vassar had spooked her. She hurried past, practicing jabbing movements with her stake, pleased to sight the hospital barracks ahead.

  Brave? ‘Pah!’ Jack and Vassar had no idea. If she saw a braindead, she’d run damn hard. Most braindeads were slow moving and Carter at the hospital had a gun. This stake, as far as she was concerned, was a last minute resort. She knew she’d have to convince Jack to teach her how to shoot, but in the end, she’d stick to what she was good at. Healing.

  ‘Dr Parker, thank goodness you’re here.’ Sub-Lieutenant Carter greeted her, casting a glance at her stake as she walked in. ‘We have four new patients. A zoo keeper who came in yesterday. Nearly starved to death. I put him on a drip. He’s picking up now since he’s had nourishment.’

  ‘Vassar told me two commandos.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am. They’re waiting for you in the ward but an urgent case just came in now. Nurse will explain.’ Carter had an odd expression on his face.

  ‘Sue in the ward?’

  ‘Nurse Wells has started taking patient details.’ He nodded his head towards the ward.

  Ruth hurried past him and was welcomed by the men. She gave them a wave. ‘I’ll be back to check on you all when I can. Sounds like something’s come up.’

  ‘Not quite the way I’d explain it,’ one of the men called out.

  The others laughed.

  Sue raced up holding a chart. ‘Nice accessory,’ she added, glancing at the stake.

  ‘Don’t knock it. Vassar made it. It’s the latest design in braindead defence. You’re about to get one. Decapitates and spears. A veritable two in one.’

  ‘That’s my Vassar. Never satisfied with one way.’

  Ruth held up her free hand. ‘Spare me, please.’

  Sue grinned. ‘Speaking of two in one, there’s a patient you need to see. You’re so not going to believe this. I’ve put him in the separate ward room where Darren used to be.’

  Ruth raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. ‘Come on, Sue. I’ve seen everything at work. So have you.’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve seen this.’ Sue led the way to the separate ward room.

  Lying on the hospital bed was one of the fittest looking men she’d ever laid eyes on. He was naked from the chest up and from the expression on his face in extreme pain.

  Ruth put her stake to the side and stood next to him. ‘Hi, I’m Dr Ruth Parker.’ She glanced up at the sign above the man’s bed.

  ‘Corporal Peter Clark,’ the man responded.

  He looked familiar but she couldn’t quite place him. Perhaps she’d seen him in the Mess.

  Sue hovered close by, a ghost of a smile on her lips. ‘Corporal Clark is Helen’s new commando friend.’

  One of them. Two men at one time. Ruth shuddered just thinking about poor Helen. She’d be sitting on an ice pack for a week if she took two of these modern day warriors to bed. Jack was more than enough for her.

  ‘Doc, you have to fix this. I’m in agony.’ Peter rose to a sitting position and lowered the bed sheet that covered his torso.

  Ouch. Ruth resisted crossing her legs. ‘You’ve fractured your penis.’ Normally she’d get in a urologist for this kind of emergency and she wasn’t keen to do it on her own. ‘How did this happen? Is Helen okay?’

  ‘Helen’s the one who did this to me. There’s no satisfying her. She wanted us both. “Hard and fast” she kept saying. Kept us going all night. It was like she couldn’t get enough.’

  ‘Really? I never would have picked it,’ Sue said. ‘Such a mousy-looking woman.’

  ‘I thought she was just interested in her elephant,’ Ruth agreed.

  ‘She said she was “celebrating being alive”. That sex helped her forget what she’d seen. I missed a beat and slammed into the bit between.’ He paused and looked from Sue to Ruth. ‘It isn’t easy to get the rhythm right when there’s another guy.’

  ‘I’ve heard that,’ Sue interjected, nodding her head. ‘Takes practice.’

  ‘Thank you, Sue, for your esteemed medical observation.’ Ruth shook her head, biting back a grin.

  Peter looked down. ‘Oh man, is it ever going to work again?’

  Ruth winced, wondering the same thing. There were no guarantees. ‘Did you hear a popping sound?’

  ‘More like a snap and then it went down and the pain hit me,’ Peter said.

  Ruth took his pulse then his blood pressure, noticing how steady both were considering this soldier’s condition. ‘Can you urinate?’ Please don’t let Peter have damaged his urethra.

  ‘Yeah. Hurt like hell though. The whole damn thing’s a shocker,’ Peter said, looking down. ‘It’s blue.’

  ‘I’d say black blue. Is it always that thick or is that just swelling?’ Sue peered over Peter’s shoulder.

  ‘Nurse Wells, could you tell Sub-Lieutenant Carter to organise a wheelchair for Peter?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘Do you need me to get prepped for surgery too?’ Sue asked Ruth, getting the urgency in her voice.

  ‘Yes. I have to repair this immediately.’

  ‘You’re going to operate?’ Peter whipped the sheet back up to his neck.

  And this was a commando who annihilated braindeads for a living. Though it seemed at that moment Helen was more dangerous a predator to the unsuspecting. It took a lot of force to do this kind of injury. ‘We call this damage a fracture but technically you don’t have a bone there. You’ve ruptured your tunica albuginea. I could suggest you use cold compresses, a splint and anti-inflammatories, but you’ll have a greater chance of complications if I don’t operate.’

  ‘What do you mean complications?’ Peter asked, angst written across his face.

  Sue had her index finger held straight in the air just out of Peter’s vision range. She curved it in a downward motion.

  Ruth blinked and pressed her lips together. ‘Complications can mean penile curvature and or possibly erectile dysfunction.’

  Peter pressed his hands to his forehead. ‘My life is over.’

  Did he not notice that there was an apocalypse going on? Sheesh. ‘You’ll live to fight another day. I’ll do my utmost to put this right for you.’

  Sue went and put her arm around Peter’s shoulders. ‘Now listen here, Peter. Dr Parker is one of the best doctors I’ve worked with. If anyone can fix you, it will be Ruth.’

  ‘You mean it?’ Peter looked from Sue to Ruth.

  Ruth liked it that Sue always had a great way with patients, stepping in to give comfort when they needed it where she felt awkward. ‘Of course. Right. Let’s do this. Peter, I’ll be operating on you across the road but first I need to scrub in. Sue, I’ll see you over there.’

  Ruth exited the ward room, walking down the steps towards the street.

  ‘Hey, Ruth, aren’t you forgetting something?’ Sue raced down the steps and gave her Vassar’s handmade stake. ‘I think this is really cool. Can’t wait until Tom gives me mine. Makes me feel like a warrior.’ She made ridiculous ninja moves with the stake.

  Ruth jumped back. ‘Careful, remember the end is a blade too. Designed to decapitate.’

  ‘Sorry, didn’t realise that.’ Sue passed it over to her a little more gingerly.

  Head down and deep in thought, Ruth
strode across the road to the former vet clinic. She liked the operating space at the clinic because it was clean and quiet. Sterile too, considering the time she’d spent scrubbing it down. The front of the clinic that faced Middle Head Road had a deck that looked onto some bush land. This she thought of as her space, the only place where she was in charge and in control of her life. She walked up the stairs and opened the door, smelling the disinfectant with appreciation. Here, she could almost pretend that life was normal, that she hadn’t lost her livelihood, friends and colleagues. Yet she had Jack. Anticipation rippled through her at the thought.

  He’d got under her skin.

  In the back room where she operated, she saw Carter had come good on his promise to bring her more green scrub clothes to change into, along with her requested mask, goggles and gloves. A long metal bench she used to operate on sat in the middle of the room. She put her stake against the wall and began to undress. Just as she did so, the front door creaked open and then closed. No doubt Sue would be making jokes about this procedure for months to come, though to be fair to Sue, she’d never do it near a patient.

  ‘I’m in the back, Sue.’

  A moan carried into the room from the reception area. She froze. Ice-like dread flooded her body along with disbelief. If she screamed, would they hear her across the street? Terror consumed her. What to do? The operating room had a door that exited onto the side of the building. She flew towards it. Locked. No key. The moaning grew loud. Think. How to escape? Ruth whipped around to see a braindead staggering through the open surgery door towards her, its arms outstretched. From the look of it a man, or what was left of one because it had part of its head blown off. Ironically, he wore a navy uniform.

  Her stake. Where was it? Against the wall. Next to the braindead. Out of reach.

  Vassar’s words came to her. Don’t let it get close. She edged her way along the wall glad there was a large metal bench between them. Feverishly, her mind worked overtime. How to escape?

  The braindead leaned across the table groaning, its long arms extended. She’d never seen an old braindead up close. Blackened flesh and a few fingers with rotten nails were all that was left of its hand. This was not a human who had a debilitating illness as she’d once thought the braindeads to be, this was reanimated death. No person could survive the horrific injuries to the head that this braindead had. The side of the head was missing along with one eye, which was consistent with a gunshot wound. Pity the brain had been missed. Throat dry, heart thumping in her chest, Ruth opened her mouth to scream but a hoarse cry, barely audible above the moaning, came out. In the background she could hear the clattering sound of the wheelchair on the ramp.

  The braindead shuffled along the length of the operating table, its one reddened eye focused on her.

  Ruth moved along the opposite length of the table to keep out of its clawing reach. She heard the screen door open. ‘Sue. Get out of here. There’s a braindead in the surgery.’

  ‘Shit,’ Sue cried. ‘I’ll get help.’

  The door slammed.

  Ruth heard the sound of feet running away and Sue screaming, at the top of her lungs.

  Leaving her alone with the braindead.

  It ambled forward moaning, prostrating itself across the surgery table, its long arms clawing for her. Ruth slammed back against the wall. Her stake. Near the door. She had to get to it. The metal operating table shifted with the weight of the braindead behind it, pinning her against the wall by the hips. Terror consumed her, flooded her mind so that she saw spots. Oh God in heaven. One scratch and she’d be dead.

  The sound of men shouting orders outside came to her ears. Their boots thundered on the ramp before the screen door swung open.

  The braindead stood and turned, its coordination slow and ungainly. It moaned and lumbered its way out of the surgery room towards the sound and more fresh meat.

  Filled with adrenaline, Ruth shoved the operating table off her, rushed around the table and grabbed her stake.

  Just in front of her, the braindead staggered towards the sailors, many of them her patients, even men who she had operated on yesterday were coming in the door on crutches, holding stakes. Jack stood in the centre of them holding a gun pointed straight at the braindead’s head.

  ‘Step aside, Ruth. I’ll take him down.’

  ‘Let us at him,’ yelled one of the men.

  Ruth sucked in a deep breath. ‘No. This one came after me. It’s mine to take down.’ She gripped her stake.

  At the sound of her voice, the braindead shuffled around to face her.

  ‘Die, you filth.’ She drove her stake up under the braindead’s chin, through the soft gullet straight into the brain.

  It dropped at her feet. A mass of stinking, decaying flesh. If it had once been human, it was no longer.

  The men clapped and hollered. ‘Well done, doctor.’

  Ruth looked up straight into their smiling faces and saw their acceptance. She caught Jack’s gaze. He was clapping and grinning.

  He slung his gun over his shoulder. ‘Came to ask you to have a nice quiet coffee with me. Didn’t expect you to be killing a braindead.’ He strode up to her, wrapped his arms around her, lifted her into the air and kissed her full on the mouth. ‘You made your first kill. Nice clean jab. Good work.’

  Ruth swallowed, the enormity of just how close she’d come, hitting her. ‘It got close back there in the surgery. I want to learn to shoot.’

  ‘You’re on.’ Jack’s eyes sparkled with acceptance.

  Sue ran forward and hugged her. ‘Who would have thought you’d be the first one of us to stake a braindead. Tom will be impressed.’

  Shaken after the event, Ruth welcomed the hugs.

  The men gathered around the corpse and Ruth noticed their faces sobered. ‘It’s one of us,’ a man said, pointing to the uniform.

  Sub-Lieutenant Carter squatted over the braindead and tried to read the name on the shirt. ‘Lopez. Anyone know him?’

  ‘Young recruit. Returned to base after a mission. Disappeared several months ago.’ Jack folded his arms, a frown on his face.

  Ruth looked down on the corpse with loathing. ‘I thought I heard a moan when I passed the tunnel entrance on my way here from the landship.’

  ‘All searched and secured, so how the hell did this get past us,’ Jack said.

  ‘I meant to say something but there was an emergency at the hospital.’ Ruth looked past the men to Corporal Clark who sat in his wheelchair on the landing.

  ‘Your emergency patient is in a lot of pain, doctor,’ Sub-Lieutenant Carter said crossing his hands in front of his privates.

  ‘Yes. Of course. I need to operate now. Could I have some help with cleaning this up?’ Ruth looked at Jack and the men.

  Admiration lit Jack’s face and his gaze was tender. ‘Every able-bodied man is at your disposal. You’ve made a braindead kill. You’re one of us now.’

  Chapter 11

  ‘Okay, Ruth, the 101 rule of handling a gun is never point it at anyone unless you intend to kill them. For the moment just get used to the feel of it.’ Jack handed her a small pistol.

  ‘Thanks. You trust me enough to be handing me a pistol?’

  ‘It’s not loaded.’

  She raised her eyebrows and stared at him. They were outside on the lawn at Chowder Bay, which faced the main harbour, once a playground for wealthy people with their large yachts. Although the water sparkled in the late sunlight not one boat crossed the harbour. Across the water she could see the city and plumes of dark smoke hovering over it. It must be hell there for the people trapped in the skyscrapers. She stood with the sunshine stroking her face, realising just how fortunate she was.

  ‘You want me to say it, don’t you? Okay, you’ve earned my trust. You’ve made a big difference to my men, fixing them so they can get out there again. I just never counted on you being so bossy.’

  ‘Guess you met your own type.’ Ruth grinned.

  ‘Yeah, I did.’ His exp
ression said so much more.

  He was so sexy in his uniform. His T-shirt stretched across his broad chest and she knew how rock hard his body was without his clothes. Something deep inside her quivered for him.

  ‘You know, Ruth, I can’t force you to stay. I wanted you to know the risks. I hope you’ll want to live here with me.’

  She noticed the way he stood stiffly as if uncertain about the ground he was standing on with her. It was so unlike Jack to be tentative rather than demanding, and yet she liked him more for it. This was a big concession to make. ‘And if I choose to move out from your cottage?’

  A pulse ticked at his temple and his mouth drew into a thin line. ‘That’s up to you.’

  ‘You mean it?’ she checked.

  ‘It’s not what I want, but if it’s what you prefer…’ His words hung in the air.

  ‘What I want is to be considered an equal. I know I don’t have the strength of a man but I pull my weight here.’ She cared about Jack. Admired the way he thought on his feet and had made a safe haven when no one else had. So many men who had served with him in the Middle East had come to his call. He was a good man, but being his woman was being owned because there was no in between with him. Scintillating sex didn’t make a relationship, good communication did and hell, it wasn’t as if she was so great at it either.

  Jack looked her over as if he were measuring up her worth. ‘Yeah. You’re a hell of a hard worker and when you learn how to shoot, I’ll know you’re able to look after yourself in a crisis. In my book, that’ll make you equal to any man on this base.’

  ‘So knowing how to use a gun is the equaliser?’ She pointed it at the sea in front of her. What about when she had an opinion?

  Jack swallowed as if sensing he wasn’t quite getting where she was coming from. ‘You’ll be safe. That’s what I care about.’

  And he did care. She could see it in his eyes, but she was used to leading and arguing her point. Jack expected people to follow his orders. How would they ever be together? ‘There’s a spare room in the operating suite. I could set up a bedroom there. The hospital is manned twenty-four seven, so it would be fine.’