Voidhawk

by Halstead, Jason

  Shaking her head at her own optimism, she stared at the door of her ambulance. It was pretty late; she should climb in and get some sleep. Still, there were wounded people out there in the camp. She’d taken care of them but still, they could always use a friendly face. Someone to tell them that they were going to be okay. Lying had become second nature to her since she became responsible for the lives of so many people. Before she’d had patients assigned to her, but she also had doctor’s who would be there to bear the weight of the world on their shoulders. And those weren’t real cases either, just pregnant woman in a sanitized and controlled environment. Not like what the world had become.

  Dawn felt the lump in her throat again. She swallowed it down and found herself crawling into her front seat. It was a and old leather bucket seat, worn but comfy. She untied her boots and kicked them off, then tossed her dirty socks onto the floor. She scooted out of her pants and reached behind her seat to haul out a threadbare blanket. She snuggled under it, then slipped off her jacket, and Kevlar vest. Proving she still had the flexibility that put that special smile on Chad’s face, she slipped her bra off under her shirt, then hung it from the automatic shifter level.

  “Good grief,” she muttered, looking at all the layers and noting she always slept with her shirt on these days. She really wasn’t big breasted enough to worry about a bra, but she refused to let go of it even though a few late night calls had her running through the camp awkwardly. It was a link to her past, back to a time when humans were the top of the food chain. When getting cleaned up meant powdering your nose, not digging the blood and dirt out from under your fingernails and hair.

  Dawn took in a deep breath, enjoying the feeling of freedom. The Kevlar squashed her, but she got used to it quick enough. The fabric of her shirt moved across her breasts, reminding her distantly of long lost, but not forgotten, sensations. She smiled faintly as she thought back on some of those pleasant memories and wondered, for a moment, if she dared to relieve them in her fantasies. She smiled again, ruefully this time, and shook her head. It was late and she was just too damn tired.

  She snuggled deeper into the blanket and threw her feet up on the other seat. She reclined the seat as far as it would go and rested the side of her head against that and the wall of the cab. Angie was off playing spy games still, so she figured she’d stretch out as much as she could. Not that she didn’t enjoy it more when Angie shared the front seat with her. They didn’t even need to talk; knowing another human who cared nearby was enough. Then again, getting Angie to not talk would take an act of God.

  With a faint smile on her lips, Dawn let her exhaustion overwhelm her.