Reckoning ~ Indian Hill 2 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (32 page)

The corporal could think of no worse fate. He knew both of those men’s families; he had eaten dinner at both of their houses on more than one occasion. He even played with all the kids. There was no way he could do what the captain had threatened. The corporal threw off his headset and stood up, as he pulled his Colt .45 out of his holster he began to run towards the truck.

“Sir! This is Corporal Eddington. Corporal Harris has taken off towards the truck.”

“I can see that, Corporal! I want you to stop him now!”

“How sir? I’m not going to shoot him.”

“Get up and tackle him if you have to.”

“Sir, you know about Corporal Harris.”

The captain knew alright. Corporal Harris was the fastest man in their unit, in the whole region. Twice a year, the various National Guard units got together and put on their version of the Olympics. Mostly, it was an excuse to get away from their spouses and drink a little, but it was also for pride of unit. Corporal Harris had proven three times over that he was the fastest hundred-meter, two-hundred-meter and six-hundred-meter runner for two years and counting.

Corporal Harris was halving the distance to the truck while the sergeant was trying to decide how critical a hit Deb’s shoulder had taken. The noise around the truck was deafeningly quiet. Deb’s curses had died down to small whimpers as the beginnings of shock began to take over. Beth stared, glassy-eyed into space. The vision of the lieutenant’s brains splattered all over the front of the truck was a sight she didn’t think that she’d forget any time soon.

The sergeant was applying pressure to Deb’s wound when he heard the unmistakable sound of combat boots on pavement. The thunk-thunk-thunking was coming, and coming fast. How many of them were there? The sergeant thought. They’ll never give these girls a chance. They’ll see the dead lieutenant and want revenge. What am I about to get myself into?

The sergeant grabbed the rifle out of Beth’s hands. She didn’t protest in the least. On the contrary, she seemed relieved to let the thing go. The sergeant moved over to the passenger side door of the truck and rested the barrel of the 30-06 on it.

“God forgive me,” the sergeant spoke before he pulled the trigger and watched as his shot hit true. Corporal Harris went down with a shot to his thigh. His femur was neatly cut in two from the force of the shot. His running days were over.

And if he ever got to live out a long and fruitful life, he would complain about the pain in his right leg every time the weather was about to change. Corporal Eddington had been in pursuit of his friend when he saw the sergeant take aim and his friend go down. Eddington fell to the pavement almost as fast as his friend.

He stayed in prone position, almost frozen with fear. Harris was his friend and he’d be damned if he remained there and let him bleed out. Harris was howling in rage and pain, his leg splayed out before him in grotesque form. Eddington rose up and began to lumber over towards him.

Sergeant O’Bannon again took aim, but the corporal didn’t seem concerned in the least about him. Eddington grabbed Harris and hefted him up onto his shoulders in the familiar fireman rescue maneuver. Eddington stared at the sergeant for a split second that seemed to stretch for all eternity. The sergeant watched everything he valued go flushing down the drain. Sergeant O’Bannon thought for a millisecond about killing them both and destroying any witnesses but he dismissed that thought almost as quickly as he thought it. It did, however, disturb him that the thought had even arisen from the deepest, darkest corners of his mind.

Sergeant O’Bannon knew that they didn’t have much time; as soon as Corporal Eddington got back to the troop transports and got his wind, his unit would come at them full on. Sergeant O’Bannon had crossed the line and he would be dealt with as swiftly as the girls.

“Time to roll! Let’s go girls!” the sergeant yelled. Neither one moved. The girl on the right sat slack-jawed against the grill of the truck and the other one was showing the first and second signs of shock. Her complexion was rapidly paling and her breathing was getting shallow. He did what he had to--he open-slapped Beth across the face. Beth’s face immediately reddened with anger.

“You bastard! What do you think that you are doing!?” she yelled as she began to rise to give this man a dose of what for.

“Saving your lives!” he shouted back. “Get your friend up. I’ll get the truck ready to travel.” She knew immediately what he meant and she thanked God he did it.

“Deb, come on. Get up,” Beth said as she gently tugged on Deb’s sleeve. Beth did not like the hue of Deb’s skin. Her lips were turning a bluish-white, almost like the color of fish. Beth shuddered as she heard the thud of a body hitting the pavement.

“Come on Deb!” I don’t want to look like that, she thought. “Come on!” she fairly wailed. That got some response out of Deb, but not enough. The sergeant had finished moving the lieutenant’s body out of the truck and most of the gray matter. He looked up and noted that Corporal Eddington was back at the troop transport, pointing towards them.

“Lady, get your friend up and moving or I’m gonna toss her in here!”

“Deb! Get up! If you ever want to see Mike again, get up!” Beth screamed. Deb finally showed some signs of life. She didn’t rise completely on her own but with Beth’s help, she did manage to get into the truck, just as Sergeant O’Bannon was putting it in gear.

The troop transport was rolling now and it would only be a matter of seconds before the tanks began to open fire; and this time they wouldn’t be warning shots. The sergeant was glad that the tanks hadn’t been retrofitted with the latest optical laser-guiding system. They wouldn’t have made it twenty feet before a round would find them. As it was, the men manning those tanks took their jobs seriously and were ranked among the best in the Massachusetts National Guard. But hitting a moving target was still difficult and the sergeant wasn’t going to make it any easier for them by driving in a straight line.

“You had better get you and you friend buckled up. We’re going to be in for a bumpy ride,” the sergeant said as he belted himself in.

“I really am getting sick of putting my seatbelt on. Every time I do, something bad happens,” Beth said as she leaned over to get Deb’s seatbelt on. Deb offered no resistance; in fact, she didn’t offer much of anything. My God, she looks pale, Beth thought as she brushed past Deb’s hand. She noted how cold she felt too. But she didn’t have too much time to dwell on it, as she heard the first volley of shots heading in their direction. It was deafening. Is this how death sounds? At least you, my friend, won’t feel it, Beth thought as she leaned over to embrace Deb.

Chapter 34 - Mike Journal Entry Six

“Doc, just for a couple of minutes?” I whined. France must be rubbing off on me, I bemused.

“Listen, Mike. I know you look good, you feel good, and your tests all say you’re doing good. But it’s only been two days since you hemorrhaged and I’m not taking any chances,” the doctor said as he wrote copious notes on the chart he had taken from the foot of the bed.

“I just want to see the sun for a few minutes. I feel like I’m back…on the ship.” I think the doctor caught my hesitation and the look I got in my eye because he finally acquiesced.

“Oh alright!” he said in exasperation. “But Nurse Hitchins will be with you the entire time and you are not to leave the wheelchair.”

“Wheelchair?”

“Wheelchair! Or you’re not going. And that’s it, Mr. Talbot, whether you’re a super hero or not. Apparently, even super heroes can die.”

“Almost.”

“Almost?” the doc asked.

“Almost die,” I said whimsically.

“The wheelchair or nothing!” he answered as he headed back to his office, mumbling something or other about kids these days and how ungrateful they were.

Nurse Hitchins showed up ten minutes later, pushing a wheelchair that I think came from the Industrial Age. The thing had more steel on it than my last car.

“You don’t have anything a little flashier do you?” I asked sarcastically. Nurse Hitchins didn’t see the humor or more likely didn’t appreciate it. She pulled my covers back. I was feeling really exposed in the hospital gown and expressed my dissatisfaction.

“Don’t you have anything I could wear that might be a bit more appropriate than this smock?” I said as I pulled at the sides of the material.

“Oh honey, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before,” she answered condescendingly.

“Nothing?” I asked, a little embarrassed.

“Listen, you might be a super hero but you aren’t Superman,” she said as she looked at my crotch for a fleeting second.

My cheeks blazed. “Fine,” I said as I let her assist me into the chair. And thankful for the help I was. For all the bravado I had displayed to the doctor, I don’t think that I could have made it up the first flight of stairs out of that place. Lucky for me, I had a chauffeur and an elevator.

My heart began to pound unexpectedly as we began our ascent. I blamed it on my first real view of the new world that our history was now recording. Deep down inside, I knew better. My senses had increased tenfold during my stay on the alien mother ship. I had come to rely on those newfound instincts, however hard I tried to quash them, and the uneasiness kept seeping in around the corners. I turned to my nurse, my face feeling like most of the color had drained out of it, and more than likely, it had, at least, from the nurse’s perspective.

“You all right, son?” she said cautiously, not sure if I was having some sort of relapse, again.

“I’m fine. But are you sure this is such a good idea? I mean, is it safe up there?”

“Honey,” she snorted, “this might just be the safest place on the planet. Not many people these days trying to break into prisons.” That did little to ease my concern. Then she added, “And this place has at least twenty to twenty-five good men guarding it.” I felt a little better but my gut said otherwise. I had learned early on in my fights that my gut was something well worth the effort to heed.

“Listen,” I said without much conviction. “I think maybe I should just go and lie back down.”

“Nonsense, it’s a beautiful day out and you look like you could use some sun.”

I mumbled a few obscenities under my breath but I went meekly. What was I supposed to do? I was in a wheelchair. What did I know? Maybe the sun would do me some good. Then the elevator door beeped onto level one. The doors opened up, and my nightmare came into full vision.

Paul was standing there with a Colt .45 aimed squarely at my chest. Bastard was going to finish me off. I cringed, trying my best to melt into the back of the chair. And then…nothing, I opened my eyes to notice one of the orderlies getting onto the elevator we were vacating with what appeared to be an ice cold Coke.

“Huh?” I said as a bead of sweat rolled down my forehead.

Nurse Hitchins either did not notice or did not speculate on my odd behavior. She rolled my wheelchair out of the lobby towards two huge glass doors, guarded by two heavily armed, that I can only describe as, freaks of nature.

The one on the right was the smaller of the two. He looked to be about six foot, five inches, two hundred and fifty or maybe two hundred and seventy-five pounds. The guy on the left was of approximately the same height but he had to be over three hundred pounds, and not an ounce of it looked like fat.

Both took a good long glance at me, and then dismissed me. Probably thinking that I hadn’t done a hundredth of what the stories circulating said I had done. Can you blame them? I was pale as warmed-over death, sitting in a wheelchair and wearing a stupid backless contraption that should have been outlawed years ago.

The men turned away from me and began speaking in French and laughing, never looking back at me, which gave me the distinct impression that they were talking about me. “Tsk tsk! That’ll be enough of that, Jean-Paul and Freire!” my nurse spoke up. Oh great. Not only did I look feeble, but now my guide was defending my honor. What next? Should I just wet myself and get it over with?

“Jess, we were just playing,” the guys said almost in unison. They weren’t sorry about teasing me but they definitely didn’t want to cross swords with the nurse. She had, on more than one occasion, sewn both of them up. She had actually saved Jean-Paul’s life a couple of years back when he got into a street brawl. Jean-Paul had been in a street fight with a man, when the man's friend had come up behind him and stuck a six-inch knife, almost to the hilt, into his spleen. It was Nurse Hitchins’ quick thinking and medical expertise that saved him from bleeding out. She was known around the place as being completely fearless and everybody respected her.