The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  "Leanette, get on the side of him!" Paula ordered. "Come on, we need to get out of here!"

  Leanette got on his left side and allowed him to put his weight on her. Together, they began to move down the hill, heading for the helicopter a quarter mile away around the base of the next hill. Unfortunately, they were not moving very fast.

  "Faster Goddammit, faster!" Paula screamed, firing a burst at a group of Auburnites that were just appearing on the left flank. Though they were still well over three hundred yards away, her fire served its purpose. They all dove to the ground.

  Doris grabbed Hector's other side and helped pull him along, thus increasing the speed of their retreat. Paula trotted behind, constantly checking the rear for more militia troops. She pulled out her radio and keyed it up. "Skip, Jack," she said into it, abandoning the code for the moment, "Hector's been wounded by return fire. We're slowed down a little. Be ready to launch the second we get there!"

  "Copy," said Jack's remarkably calm voice.

  Another group of militia came rushing around from the right side of the hill. They were less than 250 yards away. Paula sent them diving to the ground with another burst of her weapon. She cursed herself for going forward with the attack when the support elements had been so close. "Faster!" she intoned to her team.

  They managed to gain a little ground but just as they got to the base of the hill they had to go around, bullets began to whiz in from their pursuers. They were poorly aimed shots - that was true - and most of them were well off to the left or well over their heads, but a few went by close enough for the team to hear their passage. Paula fired a few more bursts, falling a little behind her team members.

  Her fire was not as effective this time since all of the militia was now proned out on the ground, having the advantage of a low profile. They ignored her ineffective bursts and continued to fire and eventually, just as Hector and his supporters reached the turn around the hill, one of the bullets found its mark. It was a .30 caliber bullet from a hunting rifle and it hit Leanette squarely in the center of her back. It drilled through her spine, snapping it and the spinal nerves that it protected, neatly in two. From there it was diverted slightly to the left and upward where it tore the side of her descending aorta, punctured her left lung, and finally left her body just below her left breast. She dropped instantly to the ground, dragging Hector and Doris down with her.

  Hector screamed in pain at the sudden impact upon his wounded pelvis. Doris gave a startled squeal as the air was blasted out of her lungs by the impact against the ground. Leanette made no noise at all; she simply fell, already feeling dizziness from blood loss and shortness of breath from her lung injury. But that was not the worst. Below her belly button, she felt nothing at all.

  Paula, seeing that another one of her squad had been hit, fired the rest of her clip at their attackers and then rushed over to see how bad it was. She saw the bloodstain spreading across Leanette's back and she feared the worst, thoughts of Dale's injuries coming immediately to mind. She knelt down next to her team members, right in front of Hector and Leanette, ignoring the bullets that were still passing all around them.

  "Come on," she intoned, pulling her magazine free and dropping it to the ground. "Doris, help Hector, I'll help Leanette."

  "Come on, Len," Hector, panting with exertion, pain, and now worry, told his wife. "Let's go! We gotta get the fuck out of here!"

  Leanette's face was already pale and sweaty, her breathing ragged, obviously each inspiration causing pain. "No," she said. "I'm done for. Leave me here. Get Hecky out!"

  "Stop talking like that!" Paula yelled at her as a few bullets passed alarmingly close. "We'll have you in El Dorado Hills with the doc in fifteen minutes. Now let's go!"

  "I can't move," Leanette said, the words coming between breaths. "Everything from the stomach down is numb. I can't move my legs and I... I can't breathe."

  "Len," Hector cried at her. "The doc will fix you up. Come on!"

  "Nothing to fix up," she panted. "I'm done for. Now go! Don't get killed here with me."

  "Leanette," Doris said, tears on her face. "You can't..."

  "I'm dying," she said frantically. "I know it. I can feel it. Now go! Please?"

  "Len, I'm not gonna leave you here," Hector said, tears on his face as well. "I can't leave you here!"

  "You have to," she said. "Take care of Maria."

  "No, Leanette!" Hector cried. "No!"

  "They'll capture you," Doris told her. "God only knows what..."

  "They won't... won't... capture me," she said, each word becoming increasingly difficult. "Leave me my pistol. I'll... I'll hold them off for you. I'm done for. Now go!"

  "Len..." Hector started.

  "Get her weapon," Paula, making one of the most agonizing decisions of her life, told her team. "Leave her the pistol."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Hector demanded.

  Two bullets slammed into the ground less than four feet from them, kicking up mud that sprayed in the air. The militia was moving forward once again, advancing upon them. Soon they would be in range to accurately hit their targets.

  "We can't help her," Paula said. "Can't you see that? We don't have any other choice. Now let's go!"

  "Listen... to... her," Leanette said, blood now running from her mouth. "Please, Hecky. Get away from here. I... know... what I'm... doing."

  "Oh God," he cried, bending down and kissing her face. "I love you, Lenny. I'll always love you."

  "I... know," she said, kissing him back, leaving bloody lip marks on his face. "And I love... you. Now go."

  They went. They stripped Leanette of her rifle but left the .45 caliber pistol. Paula took it out of its holster and put it in her hand. "Don't let them get close," she said, her tears falling on her friend's face.

  "I won't."

  With only a few looks back, the three members continued their trip to the helicopter, Paula and Doris helping to hold up the injured Hector. Thirty seconds after leaving Leanette in the mud, they made it to the backside of the hill and were dragging themselves towards the waiting helicopter.

  Leanette lay on the ground, breathing raggedly, the pain in her chest increasing with each breath she took. The dizziness too continued to worsen as her lifeblood leaked out of her main artery into her abdominal cavity. The .45 was gripped tightly in her right hand, which she kept curled beneath her. She feigned death, watching as the militia platoon advanced towards her, their weapons out before them, most of them pointed at her.

  "Please," she whispered to herself. "Just a few more seconds."

  Either through random chance or answered prayers, she was granted that extra few seconds. The front elements of the militia continued to close with her, walking carefully instead of running, allowing precious time for the rest of the team to reach the safety of the helicopter. Just as they closed to within pistol range of her, she heard the gratifying sound, faint though clearly audible, of the turbine engine winding up to takeoff speed. The sound grew and then faded as the helicopter flew away.

  "Thank you," she breathed, watching the two closest members of the militia through her partially opened eye. "Oh my Lord, I thank thee. Please forgive my sins in the name of Jesus, amen."

  With her final prayer articulated, she used the last of her energy to roll her upper body up onto her side, leaving her useless legs to lie in place. Her hand shot out and leveled the pistol on the closest of the men. He was close enough for her to see his eyes, which just had time to widen in surprise before she pulled the trigger, sending a bullet right into his chest. She shifted her aim to the next closest, firing again and striking this unfortunate in the knee.

  Two seconds later the rest of the platoon opened up on her with a variety of automatic, semi-automatic, and single shot weapons. More than thirty bullets slammed into her, obliterating her consciousness in an instant.

  "Where the hell is Leanette?" Skip yelled as Hector was thrown into the helicopter, Doris and Paula following him inside
.

  "She's done for," Paula said, tears still running down her face. "We had to leave her."

  "Shit," Skip said. "Is she dead?"

  "She will be," she told him. "There was no choice, Skip. No choice. Now get us out of here. They're right fucking behind us!"

  He lifted off, spinning the helicopter to the southwest and putting on the speed, keeping low and passing between another group of hills before gaining altitude. Doris opened up a first-aid pack that Paul had prepared and began to pull bandages and tape out. Paula helped her, leaving Skip in the dark about what had happened because she didn't put on her headset right away.

  "Jack," Skip said, "call Christine on the radio and tell her to abort her mission and hunker down. We'll be back to pick her up later."

  "Right," Jack said, his mind somewhat shocked, his eyes unable to drag themselves away from the blood running down Hector's back or the tears running down his companions' face. He keyed up his radio. "Mother bird to hatchling one, do you copy?"

  "Hatchling one here," Christine said a moment later. "Go ahead."

  "Abort your mission and hold in place. I repeat, let the wolves pass and hold in place. We will be unable to extract you. Hatchling two has taken casualties and we need to fly to the MASH unit."

  There was a long pause, long enough so that Jack was forced to ask his sister if she had copied him.

  "I copy," she said in a slow voice. "What are the extent of the casualties?"

  Jack looked at Skip, quietly questioning whether he should provide this information to them. Skip, a believer in the truth, nodded.

  "Leanette is dead," Jack said, his voice breaking a little. "Hector is wounded. We'll get back to you as soon as we can."

  Christine's voice was audibly upset when she answered. "I copy that, mother bird. We're holding in place."

  Skip brought them up to an altitude of five thousand feet and accelerated up to 110 knots, as fast as the helicopter could go. He glanced back every minute or so to check on the status of Hector, who, although he was now bandaged up, was very pale and seemed to be flirting with unconsciousness. Paula had finally donned her headset and she was able to tearfully tell Skip the story of what had happened. It was quite obvious, listening to her, that she blamed herself for what had happened.

  "Paula," he said, firmly, "this is not your fault. You did the best you could."

  "Skip," she said, shaking her head violently, "one of my team is dead. I had to leave her out there with the militia!"

  "You did what you had to do," he said. "This is war, hon, and things like that happen in war."

  "You told us that we had the safest fucking job!" she accused, looking for a target to discharge her grief and anger upon. "You told us that this wouldn't happen!"

  "I told you it shouldn't happen," he corrected. "And I'm sorry that it did. But its over now and we have to take care of Hector."

  She had no answer for him. She simply buried her face in her hands and cried.

  "El Dorado Hills, this is Garden Hills helicopter, do you copy?" Jack asked on the frequency assigned for that particular communication. They were currently passing over the eastern guard positions of the town, flying at a relatively low 1500 feet above the ground, slowing, but still moving at well over ninety knots.

  The reply took a minute but at last the familiar voice of Pat came on the frequency. "This is El Dorado Hills," he said. "Go ahead Garden Hill. It looks like you wish to land?"

  "That's affirmative," Skip said, taking over the communications channel. "We have a wounded man from a skirmish. He has a gunshot in the back. Can you assist?"

  "Bring him down," Pat said without hesitation. "Go ahead and land in the parking lot outside. I'll get Renee moving."

  By this point, nearly twenty minutes after being shot, Hector was barely conscious, his usually dark complexion pale and clammy, his eyes glazed. His breathing was rapid and deep, as if he couldn't get enough air.

  Skip circled once around the parking lot just to make sure that there was no one lingering near his landing zone, and then brought them down quickly, almost as if he were doing a combat drop. He quickly began the engine shutdown procedure. Before he was even halfway through it, a group of men and women came running out of the school admin building. The rolled a gurney that looked as if it had come from an ambulance with them. Renee the doctor was among them. By the time the engine wound down, leaving the rotor blades spinning freely and silently to a halt above them, the group was at the side door.

  Paula, still with tears running down her face, opened the door for them. Renee was the first to stick her head in.

  "Is he breathing?" she asked.

  "Yes," replied Doris, who was cradling him and holding pressure on his bleeding back. "He looks like he's working to do it, but he's breathing."

  "Okay," Renee said, more to her people than to Skip's, "let's get him out of there."

  Three people, all of them wearing latex gloves upon their hands, reached in and pulled Hector free of the helicopter, dragging him directly onto the ambulance gurney. No sooner was he out of the aircraft then Renee was looking him over, her eyes searching for the source of the bleeding. Skip, watching all of this, noticed that her hands were shaking a little.

  "How many shots?" Renee asked, addressing no one in particular.

  "Just one," Paula answered. "It hit him in the butt and came out his back it looks like."

  "Any idea of the caliber?" she asked, feeling at his wrist for his pulse. She frowned a little at what she felt.

  "No," Paula said. "The militia uses M-16s, AK-47s, and hunting rifles mostly. It was a lucky shot."

  "Okay," Renee said. She looked at Hector's face. "Are you with me?" she asked him in a loud voice.

  He mumbled back something that sounded like: "I think so," but his voice was very weak, his words thick and slow.

  "Let's get him into the treatment room," Renee told her people. "Sally, get some blood from him right away and put it through the type and cross, just like I taught you. Do it twice just to be sure and then start looking through the index cards for a donor. It looks like he's gonna need it."

  While Sally told Renee that she would get right on that, the entire group began trotting towards the front of the building, four of them holding onto a corner of the gurney. Within twenty seconds, Hector had disappeared through the doorway, leaving his team and his pilots behind.

  Pat had wandered out at some point during he activity and he remained behind. He was dressed in the customary rain gear and had a pistol strapped to his waist, although he carried no rifle. His face was concerned as he walked over to the group of four climbing free of the helicopter. He shook hands with Skip.

  "They'll give him the best care possible," he said to Skip, although his words were meant for everyone. "We've been drilling and preparing for just such an emergency."

  "It shows," Skip said. He had been expecting a frantic clusterfuck upon landing but had instead been treated to a well-disciplined and seemingly competent medical team. "We appreciate your help."

  "It's the least we could do," Pat told them. "Renee has been reading through her texts on the treatment of traumatic injuries ever since we agreed to help you. She's also blood-typed everyone in town so we'll have donors once we figure out what kind of blood your man has."

  "Very smart," Paula, seeming to calm a little, said. "And again, thank you very much."

  "Why don't we go inside?" Pat suggested. "We'll have some tea and wait for the word to come down. And you can tell us how your war is going. Obviously it's started, right?"

  "Oh yes," Skip said. "It's started all right."

  Hector was wheeled into what had once been the school nurse's office but was now the primary treatment area for the town doctor. It was a room that had electric lights powered by the outside generator and cases and shelves of medical equipment scavenged from Renee's office prior to it being washed away in the first of the landslides. They kept Hector on the gurney they had brought him in on, not wan
ting to risk moving him again.

  Renee was terrified of what she was about to do here. Though on the outside she was doing an admirable job of projecting the calm, coolness that was associated with a MD after her name, inside she was on pins and needles. For some reason the public - meaning, to her, all those who had not been to medical school - was under the impression that a doctor was a doctor was a doctor and that no Micker what they specialized in, they would automatically know how to handle anything medical that crossed their path. Some doctors actually believed this themselves. But it was simply not true. She was a Goddamn family practice specialist, not a trauma surgeon! True, she had dissected cadavers in med school more than ten years before and true she could tell the difference between a kidney and a spleen and a liver once she was looking at them, but she had never done anything like operating on a gunshot wound victim before. She had never even cut into the abdominal cavity of another human being before except to perform the occasional C-section of a delivering mother. She was not a surgeon. Her specialty had been treating runny noses, ear infections, sore throats, hypertension, depression. She had diagnosed pregnancy and provided pre-natal care, she had looked after babies and small children, she had taken care of sore backs. For everything more complicated than that, for everyone that needed to be admitted to the hospital down in Folsom (a hospital which had been washed away by the breaking of the dam), she had referred people to specialists.

  But now there were no more specialists. There was only her and her undertrained team and this man would live or die because of what she did now.

  "Renee, are you okay?" asked Jenny, who had been her office assistant in pre-comet life.

  Renee looked up at her, the second most highly trained medical specialist in El Dorado Hills - a woman who had a six-week course from a tech school under her belt. Jesus help us. "I'm okay," she said. "Get him on his back and let's put him out."