“C’mon Joe, don’t give up on me now! Balboa said that there is a chopper coming, but we gotta hurry!”
“Is everbody doin’ okay?” Joe slurred his words as he tried to speak to Chris.
Chris thought of Balboa, still manning the .50 cal at the entrance. The constant boom of the gun meant that he was still alive. “Yeah, everybody has made it so far. Balboa is keepin’ ‘em down until we can get outta here. Come on, dude just keep putting one foot on front of the other,” Chris said as he continued to help Joe get one step closer to the roof.
Jamie met the three men as they slogged up the stairs. Jamie’s look of horror was unmatched as he saw Joe, dripping blood and all. “Holy shit! What the hell happened?”
“One of Wyatt’s men got a shot off on him, went right through his shoulder. I think it got his subclavian artery!”
Jamie shuddered as the men stopped and he took a look at the wound. It was not clotting at all yet and was still bleeding more than he could stop. Joe struggled to keep his feet moving, and after a few steps it felt like they were not moving at all. They were not. Chris, Amos, and Jamie picked him up and carried him to the rooftop, outside. The steady drone and unmistakable sound of a helicopter made it’s way towards them as they half-carried, half-dragged him out onto the roof. The sound was momentarily silenced by the constant rush of wind that kept pounding away at them, the stinging precipitation blowing in sideways. The chopper slowly came into sight, much to the relief of everyone that saw it.
The three men carrying Joe sat him down and began trying to stop the bleeding as much as humanly possible. Jamie pressed down as hard as he dare and felt the crepitus sound of bones crunching underneath his hands as he did. The clavicle was indeed broken and had nicked the subclavian artery. Jamie continued pressing down hard as the chopper swayed and maneuvered overhead. The steady whir of the blades and the wind it produced made it exponentially difficult for Jamie or Chris to see anything as they tried to save their friend. Ashleigh, Buffey, and Rickey all stood in the doorway as the steady thumping of the chopper got closer, eventually hovering overhead.
A US Navy sailor fast roped down from the hovering chopper, hitting the deck and scanning around the rooftop with a modified MK-14 sniper rifle. A second sailor roped down with a Stokes basket and dragged it quickly over to where Joe lay. Both men wore Navy ACU camouflage and black flight helmets.
“Where is he hit? He’s not bitten is he?” The sailor screamed over the din of the helicopter engine.
“No he’s not bit! He took an M4 round to the shoulder! I can’t get the bleeding stopped!” Jamie hollered back. The sailor reached into a drop-down holster on his leg and pulled out a Quik-Clot bandage and pressed it hard to Joe’s shoulder.
“Hold that on there, hard!” He yelled and motioned for his sniper friend to assist with putting Joe into the Stokes basket. It was fashioned of mostly chicken wire and shaped like a large metal sled. Joe and his cohorts had used them in rescue situations, mostly high-angle rope rescues. The sailor and the three other men hoisted Joe into the basket and secured him with tie-downs and duct tape. After they had secured him he raised a thumbs-up to the crewmember above, who lowered down a wire to secure it and pull Joe up to the helicopter.
“We’ve only got a few minutes of fuel left! Is this everyone?” The sailor yelled to Jamie. He took a look around and nodded to the sailor.
“No! We still got a man downstairs manning the fifty cal! Balboa hasn’t come up yet!” Chris said, interrupting.
“We can’t wait! Get the women and children on first! He’s got until we get loaded to get his ass up here or we have to leave him! Come on!” The sailor gestured towards the doorway to Ashleigh, Buffey, and the boys as Chris sprinted by them.
“Where the hell is he going! We don’t have time!” Jamie screamed. The women and children came closer to the sailor as the rope came back down, this time with a basket attached to it.
“One at a time! GO!” the sailor commanded.
* * *
Chris sprinted down the staircase, leaping the steps four and five at a time. Once he got away from the loud, steady drone of the helicopter he noticed that he could no longer hear the thundering boom of the Ma Deuce. His pace quickened even more as he heard small arms gunfire from below him
“BALBOA! IF YOU’RE ALIVE RUN TO THE STAIRS!” Chris screamed as he continued down to the second floor landing and came to a stop for a moment before barreling through the door of the second floor balcony. Balboa was walking backwards up the steps, firing his M9 pistol as he did. Chris looked down to the horde that was trying to come into the hospital. The undead had log jammed themselves in the doorway, effectively ending their pursuit.
“LET’S GO! CHOPPER’S WAITING!”
Balboa spun around and met Chris’ wide-eyed stare. He fired of the last of his 9mm rounds and threw the Beretta at the oncoming zombies. They had broken through below them, hundreds trying to squeeze through the doorway had given way, spilling the undead into the lobby. The growling, snarling, and generally rotten pursuers immediately keyed in on Chris and Balboa. Balboa was already sprinting back to the doorway, with Chris just ahead of him, also running – literally – for their lives. They bounded up the stairs three and four at a time. The drone of the helicopter could be heard; their salvation just ahead.
They burst through the door as the last of the sailors was nearly off the ground, held up by the cable.
“WAIT! WAIT!” The two men screamed. The sailor on the line made a motion to lower the line back down quickly. He motioned the men to run to him and they did, sprinting to their lifeline and grabbing the sailor and the line in a group bear hug. The chopper moaned and pulled down slightly as the extra weight was added. The crew chief above reeled in the line, slowly pulling the three men onto the chopper and assisting them in.
“Cutting it a little close aren’t you?” The crew chief yelled with a huge smile as he helped the three men in and secured the door, slamming it shut.
“You have no idea!” Chris exasperatedly responded. He rolled over to where Joe lay, still in the Stokes basket. He did not look good. The sniper sailor was desperately trying to dress Joe’s wound and did not look like he was having much luck. Chris scrambled over to assist, grabbing bandages and spiking a bag of IV fluid. His pulse pounded and his throat tightened.
“HOLD ON BUDDY DON’T YOU DIE YET!”
* * *
The scene at Monroe County Hospital went on without any human presence to do so. The irradiated zombies stormed throughout all of the halls and spilled out onto the roof. The noise of the Navy chopper had drawn them to the roof, and they flung themselves at the sound, oblivious to their lack of depth perception. They fall from the roof in droves, falling on other undead below them, committing a kind of fratricide as they killed a few of the zombies that were unfortunate enough to get landed on by another.
The lone human in the area ran for his life, however. He sprinted away from the hospital in desperate pursuit of another life. He was not going to give up so easy. He would find Joe and his ragtag group of survivors, no matter how much time and effort it took, the bastard that killed his comrades would pay. He would never give up, he would never surrender.
After all, he was a United States Marine.
CHAPTER 17
Hunger, fear, drawn to something that he could not put his finger on. Sliding in and out of blackness and light, hope and despair, he could not control his own actions. His brain craved something that he did not have – and at the same time desperately clung to the life that was trying to flee away. He had responsibilities. He had a fire in his heart.
And he had a reason to live, dammit.
Joe’s eyes opened slowly and he immediately wished that he hadn’t opened them at all. The throbbing in his shoulder also immediately reminded him that he was alive. No dead man would have been in so much pain. He rolled over slowly and took stock of his surroundings. IV lines, oxygen, several machines that now made a ping greet
ed him. He was in a clean, white room that was artificially lit by fluorescent lights above him. He rolled back to his left and saw the door that led out of the room. Joe squinted his eyes and looked at the door in earnest. It was not an ordinary door, but it looked like a hatch. Upon closer inspection, it was a hatch. Joe slowly got to a semi-sitting position and tried to ascertain where he was at.
He did not smell bad anymore. He was dressed – mostly. An assless hospital gown covered most of him, he could feel the soft sheets under his butt. Joe slowly tossed the covers off him and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cool, but not cold and felt good for the most part. He put his hands on either side of his hips and tried to push himself up, the pain in his right shoulder preventing him from doing so. Joe hollered out without realizing what the noise might attract.
Almost as soon as he called out, the hatch creaked and swung open. An attractive blonde walked into the room dressed in a blue polo shirt and khaki pants. She carried a clipboard and, as soon as she saw that Joe was sitting up, placed it on a table at the end of the bed and smiled.
“Welcome back, sir,” The cute blonde said, still smiling. “Your friends will be happy to see that you're awake.”
Joe weakly looked over to her and tried his best to return the smile. “My friends? How long have I been out? Who are you? And where exactly am I?”
The blonde walked over in front of Joe and turned him back towards the bad, covering him back up and checking his vitals. “To answer your questions: your friends, the ones we rescued from the hospital, you’ve been out for three days, my name is Angel, and you are aboard the USNS Mercy in the Gulf of Mexico. You were rescued from the hospital and brought to the USCGC Joshua James where you coded before they could get you…”
Joe shot up in the bed. “Wait! I coded? What the hell!”
Angel placed a reassuring hand on Joe’s good shoulder and gently pushed him back down. “Calm down, Joe. You were brought back by some Navy Corpsmen on the Joshua James, then once you were a little more stable, they flew you over her with a couple of your friends. From what I understand most of them are medics, they’ve been able to help out quite a bit around here.”
Joe laid back down. The last memory that he could recall was the crew chief’s face on the chopper that picked him and the rest of his crew up. He was a middle-aged man, probably in his late thirties and was telling Joe to hold on for a few more minutes. Everything up until now had been a blur, mostly a black blur. He had the most intense nightmares and the most horrible visions that he could not shake from his memory.
Angel finished writing down his vitals and picked up the handset for the phone in the room, dialing a few numbers and waited. She spoke to a voice on the other end and smiled, then hung up the phone.
“A few of your friends are waiting on you, if you're up to it. The doc says as long as you feel up to it that a little exercise would do you some good. Just be careful with that arm, we had to do surgery on the artery to close it back up and you lost quite a bit of blood. Good thing you had your dog tags on with your blood type, we were able to get you a transfusion almost right after you got here.”
Joe got to his feet slowly and looked around. “I don’t suppose you have some clothes for me, do you?”
Angel opened up a drawer and procured a set of black and blue Navy ACU’s and set them on the bed, along with a pair of black boots. “Here you go, sweetie.”
Angel helped Joe get dressed, being careful not to manipulate his arm any more than she had to. Once he was dressed, she put the affected arm in a sling and swath, holding it to Joe’s chest to make sure that he would not be able to move it. Joe gingerly got to his feet and rose slowly. The soreness in his arm was not unbearable, but it was by no means comfortable. Angel spun the handle of the door and opened it. Joe had never dealt with anything to do with the Navy, and was a bit lost trying to navigate his way through the halls. Even the terms that the Navy used for hallways, stairs, and a threshold had odd names such as “knee-knockers” and “ladder wells.”
Angel guided Joe through the hallways to the deck of the ship. The hurricane had obviously passed, as evidenced by the bright, yellow sun that warmed his skin as he walked onto the deck. The sky had few clouds to block his view of the deep, blue sea that spread out before him. The Mercy was quite a large ship, and did not sway with the tide, at least not as far as Joe could tell. The gentle sound of the waves slapping the side of the ship as it sat anchored was calming and that effect was not lost on him.
Joe lifted his nose and smelled the salty air, taking in the entire scene. His calm nerves eventually got back to being a bit frazzled after he stood and though about what had transpired since the hospital. First off, Lieutenant Wyatt had escaped as the irradiated herd of undead had tracked them down and apparently taken over the hospital as they were escaping. Second, he had apparently fucking died at some point in the last 72 hours, that at least explained the dreams and the overall odd feeling that he had. And third, now that they were out to sea and presumably rescued…what now? He had not seen another Naval officer aside from Angel, who might have been a civilian. He was sure that the Navy had plans to take back the mainland, and he was not anxious to volunteer. Joe needed a few more days off, after all, he had died to get some time off now – literally.
“Feels good, don’t it?” A familiar voice called out from behind him. Joe turned and saw that Chris and Jamie were walking up behind him, both also dressed in the Navy ACU uniform. It was the first time in over a week that he could remember what they both looked like clean-shaven and not covered in entrails or blood clots.
“You're damn right it does!” Joe slowly stepped towards them, his good arm extended for a handshake. Both men obliged and Jamie patted Joe lightly on the back on his bad shoulder. Joe winced slightly and played it off like he was not in pain.
“Still stings a bit, but apparently I'm just lucky to be alive,” Joe said, addressing both men.
“Yeah, you coded and almost died when we landed on the Joshua James, good thing the Coast Guard has plenty of paramedics, or you would have been really screwed,” Chris said, folding his arms and smiling.
“How is everybody else doing? Did we all make it?” Joe wondered aloud to Jamie.
“Yessir, all present and accounted for. Balboa messed up his knee sprinting up the stairwell right before we escaped, but he’s doing fine now. Aside from the usual cuts, scrapes, and general bad hygiene, we all turned out just fine.”
Joe smiled and the good news warmed his heart the way the sun warmed his skin. His sole purpose was to get his people to safety, and now he could satisfactorily say that it was “mission accomplished” finally. Joe smiled the smile of true accomplishment. He took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, very proud of himself. He turned back to his cohorts.
“So what are you guys doing here on the Mercy?”
“Well we’ve been helping out doing sutures, basic medical aid, stuff like that, plus, well,” Chris started.
“What? Well what?” Joe said, smiling and curious.
“I think you ought to come see who all else is here on the ship. We aren’t the only ones and we have some really fantastic news that I think the appropriate people need to tell you about,” Chris replied, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
Joe laughed out loud, and meant to - for once - out of good news. “Okay, boys,” Joe gestured with his good arm. “Lead the way.”
Chris and Jamie led Joe below decks and down several hallways before coming to the one that they meant to be at. It seems they also had become a bit disoriented despite being on the ship for a few days. They still hadn’t quite figured their way around just yet. The passed a few more medical bays like the one Joe had been in before asking for directions. Jamie spoke to the Petty Officer that passed him in the hallway and the sailor obliged with directions, pointing the way down the hall. After another thirty seconds they were at their intended destination.
The sign on the door said “Nurse
ry” and had obviously been hand drawn, as the ship had little in the way of OB/GYN personnel. Chris and Jamie stopped at the door and gestured Joe inside. Joe stepped through the doorway and saw Buffey, Rickey, and Ashleigh seated at a desk with Dakota in a crib not ten feet away. They were, like Chris and Jamie, finally recognizable and clean for the first time in a long while. Rickey saw Joe first and bolted up out of his seat. Joe kneeled down and held out his good arm to slow his son’s charge.
“Easy there, killer,” Joe said, laughing. “Daddy got shot, remember?”
Rickey eased his pursuit and gently came over to Joe and hugged his unaffected side. Joe returned the gesture and squeezed Rickey as hard as he could with his good arm. He was glad to see that his son had made it through the apocalypse unharmed and in safe keeping now. Joe nodded to Ashleigh and smiled as Buffey stood up and walked over to Dakota and gestured Joe over.
“You’ll never guess what our little buddy here is doing,” she said with a grin.
“What’s that?”
“He’s making a vaccine in his tiny little body – same as you,” Buffey’s smile faded a bit before she turned back to Joe.
Joe squinted his eyes and frowned. “And how exactly are we doing that? Not to be ungrateful, but how do we know that?”
Six Feet From Hell: Books 1 - 3 Page 39
