Reckoning by Mark Tufo
Every time I even considered going topside, I had to resist the urge to throw up. My knees would quake, my muscles would spasm and my friggin’ bowels would loosen. My knocking knees and weakening bowels had almost cost me a serious mishap on more than one occasion. I would get physically ill at just the mention of getting fresh air. Nurse Hitchins was all over me to go outside and get some color back in my cheeks, but I would have none of it. I had just finished my five-mile run, okay jog, okay trot, on the treadmill when I returned to my room to cool off. I was preparing to take a shower when my door was thrown open.
“Anyone ever hear of knocking?!” I yelled as I pulled my shorts back up.
“Honey, we’ve already been through this.” Nurse Hitchins dismissed my modesty with a wave of her hand. “Come on, you’ve got to hear this for yourself,” she said. After entering the room, she half dragged me through the door while I tried in vain to put my sneakers back on. We were halfway out the door when I saw two armed, uniformed men running towards us. They had their weapons at the ready and looked like they meant business. I was hoping they would run on by but the reaction of the man in the lead when he saw me made me think otherwise.
“Captain Talbot?” the lead man asked.
I really didn’t feel like a captain at the moment, half naked, all sweaty, and being pulled by a nurse half my size. I stopped short and, by default, so did my nurse. She nearly teetered over but I was quickly able to stop her momentum and prevent her from toppling over. The sudden movement had caused some pain deep within me. I winced but did my best to not let anyone know.
“Yeah, that’s me.” I said as I slowly stood straight up. The second man had overtaken his comrade and stopped about three feet further down the hallway. So there we were, the first man who asked my name, Nurse Hitchins, myself and the second man who seemed not very thrilled with whatever orders had been bestowed upon him.
“Nurse, I am going to have to ask you to step away from that man,” the first man said as he lowered his weapon onto her midsection.
“Who are you miscreants?!” she yelled. “How dare you point that thing at me! I will not step away from this man!”
“Ma’am, step away or we will have to physically remove you!” the second man chimed in.
What was going on? Would I be able to take two armed men in this confined space? Would I have enough in me to do the job?
“I will not!” she said defiantly. “I have spent weeks healing this man and I will not see it undone here and now!” she said as she placed her hands on her hips.
The second man did as he warned her he would do. He picked her up by the waist and deposited her five feet away from the little ordeal. Nurse Hitchins started to run back into the fray when the first man placed the barrel of his weapon directly in her midsection. Instantly, she froze.
“Whoa!” I said with my hands up in the air. “That’s enough! Your beef is with me. Let the nurse go.” Nurse Hitchins looked into my eyes, pleading for help. “Let her go,” I said more forcefully. “And I will do what you want of me.” The man’s eyes unglazed a bit more as he started to regain his composure.
“Come on, man! Let her go.” I half begged. The man, ever so slowly, eased his finger off of the trigger.
“Go,” he said to her.
“What about you?” Nurse Hitchins asked.
“Go,” I answered. “Don’t make this any worse than it has to be.” She turned and began to run.
When she had put a comfortable distance between us, she turned and yelled. “I’m getting help. I’ll be right back!” Tears were rolling out of her eyes.
The first man who approached turned towards me after making sure that Nurse Hitchins wouldn’t be making a surprise return.
“Captain Talbot, I need you to come with us.” He may have made it sound like a request, but I doubted that I had any choice in the matter.
“Whatever you two are going to do, just it do it now and be done with it,” I shot back. I was in no mood to spar with them. And I sure wasn’t going to make it any easier on them by acquiescing to what I felt was the inevitable.
“Sir?” was his only response.
“I do not plan on going with you two voluntarily to be a patsy in whatever agenda you and your superiors have.” I spat. If I had been a snake, venom surely would have shot out; but that not being the case, saliva would have to do.
“Sir?” Now he even cocked his head. “I think that you have a misunderstanding of our ‘agenda’.” He smiled slightly. Now it was my turn to look confused.
“Listen, I’m not much for games. Why don’t you just tell me who you are and what is going on here?”
“Sir, my name is Vice Sergeant Roy and my friendly friend over there is Corporal Michaud.” The second man merely nodded in my direction as he kept a vigilant watch on anybody that was coming in our general direction. “Sir, we are from the French Foreign Legion and we’ve be sent here to protect you.”
I was now completely lost, I felt like a six-year-old lost in the woods of Maine. “The French Foreign Legion? Who sent you and who are you protecting me from?”
“Sir, I would feel much more comfortable if you would let me answer all of your questions in a more secure location.”
“Listen, Vice Sergeant, I already told you, I’m not going voluntarily, not unless you give me some answers and some damn good ones at that.”
The corporal turned to his sergeant. “Let me just knock him in the head and let’s get out of here.”
“You’re more than welcome to try, Corporal, but I can almost guarantee you’ll end up with a 5.56 millimeter enema,” I answered back. The corporal, who probably outweighed me by fifty pounds, sneered and began to close in on me.
“Corporal!” the sergeant shouted. “That’s enough! You so much as misplace a hair on his head and I’ll deal with you personally!” The corporal stopped but he was using every muscle in his body to restrain himself.
“You aren’t worth it,” he said calmly as he took his place five feet away and again began his scan of the surrounding area.
“Alright, Captain, can I at least explain while we’re moving?” the sergeant almost pleaded. as I merely folded my arms.
“Alright, you friggin’ Americans are so obstinate. We were sent here by Colonel Ginson.” My interest was piqued. “He wants to get you out of here before the locals get to you and throw you to the wolves,” he continued.
“Why would the locals be after me? What have I done to them?”
“You truly don’t know?” he asked.
“Do I look like I know?” I answered curtly.
“Have you been near a radio in the last hour?”
“No, I’ve been on the treadmill. What’s so interesting about the radio? First Nurse Hitchins, and now you.”
“The aliens are broadcasting across the radio wave spectrum. They somehow know that you’re here, and they want you back.”
My face instantly paled if it hadn’t already although I didn’t want to show any weakness to the corporal. If not for that, I most likely would have just collapsed. Now my mind was racing. Did the doctor forget some deeply buried tracer? No, that couldn’t be it. They would have just stormed the building and be done with it. Why all the drama of flying overhead and destroying the southern part of the city? I had been so engrossed in my own thoughts, I didn’t even notice when the sergeant began to talk again.
“… And if we don’t give you up, they’ll take out another chunk of the city.”
“What..what did you say?”
The sergeant was beginning to look a bit agitated. Loud voices began to rise from the lobby area.
“Let’s just get him, so they’ll go.” And a different voice, it sounded female,
“I will not lose any more of my family.”
“Captain, the aliens are ordering the people of Paris to turn you over. If they don’t comply, they will take out another section of the city until there is nothing left.” This time I did falter, but I shot my hand o
“I…I can’t be responsible for the lives of these people, if I run, they’ll die,” I answered meekly.
“Listen, Captain, my orders aren’t to protect them, they’re to protect you. Let’s go!” he shouted as a group of five or six turned the corner and began to approach.
“There he is!” one of the men said as he pointed right at me. He was one of the orderlies whom I had been joking with on almost a daily basis. They began to advance faster when they saw me, but Corporal Michaud intervened, leveling his weapon squarely on their leader.
“Any one of you takes one step closer and I’ll kill all of you!” he said menacingly. Their steps faltered, looking down the barrel of the rifle he held and by his tone of voice. The group felt confident that this wasn’t an idle threat. And yet, that almost didn’t stop them. The orderly put his hands out to halt the progress of his little group. He whispered into the ear of the man nearest him, who looked surprisingly like the head janitor of the place, but I sure never remembered that scowl on his face. The men departed, reluctantly.
“Captain Talbot, they’re leaving now, but believe me they are coming back most likely with more people and weapons. We need to move now.”
“What about the rest of the city?” I resisted, but not too convincingly.
“We can work that all out later, right now we need to move.”
“Why don’t I just let them take me to the aliens and stop this madness now?” I didn’t really feel that I wanted to go to the aliens but it seemed like the right thing to say under the conditions.
“Captain you’ll never make it alive. The aliens never said in what condition they wanted you, just that they wanted you. If you give these people even half a chance, they’ll drop off what’s left of your body. If you decide to go to the aliens, they will more than likely not allow you to go on your own terms. Those five people are going to be back, and it will be a mob by then. Do you really want to chance your well being to a mob mentality?”
“Which way, Sergeant?”
“Finally,” the corporal muttered, just loud enough to make sure I heard.
Chapter 37
New York / Massachusetts State Line
Beth literally felt her fillings shake loose, partly from the G-force of the truck as the now rogue sergeant gunned it for all it was worth, but mainly from the concussion shock from the tank’s rounds.
“Oh my God!” Beth screamed. “I think my head is going to explode!”
“Well, let’s just be glad it’s only your head and not this truck,” Sergeant O’Bannon said as he realized they were finally out of danger from the tank rounds. Deb roused her head for a fraction of a second after the last volley, but managed only a sigh, as if she couldn’t be bothered with the events of the day.
The sergeant glanced over at Deb. “Is she going to make it?” he asked Beth in what he hoped was an appropriate tone, but under the circumstances, it came out more as a shout.
“Make it? She has to make it. She’s the only friend I’ve got,” Beth started to sob. In the excitement of their escape, she really hadn’t had enough time to dwell on the subject. But as the truck began to descend over the crest of the freeway, realization began to set in.
Deb already looked dead. Her eyes were sunken, and her skin was cool, cold to the touch. Beth couldn’t even be sure if Deb’s chest was still rising. And now she just wanted to be out of the truck and as far away from the whole scene as was entirely possible. The final volley of shots ringing out from the vanishing roadblock shocked her back into the here and now.
“We need to get her to a hospital!” Beth said as she turned to look at their rescuer. “Fast!” she added needlessly. The sergeant had already made up his mind by looking at Deb that she past the point of no return.
“There isn’t a hospital in working order on this side of the state line for fifty miles,” the sergeant said with concern in his voice. “And the way she looks, she won’t make it another ten.”
“I can’t let her die,” Beth sobbed, covering her face with her hands. “We’ve been through too much. She can’t just up and die, not this way. Not at least until she sees Mike again. She’ll…she’ll never forgive me,” Beth wailed on.
“Do you have a first aid kit in this truck?” the sergeant asked, trying to make Beth get a handle on her emotions. Beth kept crying.
“Listen!” the sergeant said as he grabbed Beth’s arm. “Do you have a first aid kit in this truck?” he asked a little louder. Beth was only able to nod her head in ascent as cries kept bubbling up out of her throat.
“Do you have a knife or something sharp like that?” the sergeant asked, seeing that Beth was again beginning to slip back into panic mode.
“T-t-t-two of them,” Beth stammered out, holding two fingers in the air to reiterate her point.
“There’s a rest stop not more than five miles. Get all the supplies you can find ready for when we get there!” the sergeant barked.
“For… for what?” Beth managed to stammer out.
“We’re going to operate,” the sergeant said matter-of-factly.
“Operate!? Can’t we just take her to a hospital? Or something?”
“Or something would be great right now,” the sergeant said sarcastically. “Unfortunately, right now, or something is us.” Beth redoubled her sobbing. “You had better get moving!” the sergeant said as he again shook Beth’s arm. “If you want any chance of saving your friend’s life.” Beth calmed down a little with the task at hand, the thought of operating on Deb, in a parking lot no less, was making her seriously uneasy, to say the least.
Beth had finished putting together what she hoped would be sufficient supplies for the impending operation. The truck was equipped with a fishing tackle box that contained a beautiful steel-finished Gerber fishing knife. Beth dragged the blade across her fingernail to see if it was sharp. Also, the box, for whatever reason, contained both needle and thread. Beth couldn’t imagine for what, but she could not help feeling that it was a good sign.
In addition, crammed way under the seat, was a bag of rags. They appeared to be unused from the condition of the Auto Zone bag. Again, Beth was immensely thankful to the powers that be. They even found a pair of tweezers in the tackle box, she wondered if it would be enough? There were no bags of blood lying around to make it a truly miraculous find. Beth found herself doing something she had not done since she was a little girl at the foot of her bed--she prayed. Only this time, it wasn’t for a pony or a new Barbie or even an Easy Bake oven.
No, she was praying for the life of the woman that sat next to her. A woman whom she once detested but who was now, far and away, her best friend, irrespective of Mike. A sharp pang hit her chest as she thought of his name but she quickly disregarded it. There would be time later to think of him. Right now, she had to focus everything on Deb.
The truck screeched into the rest area, however, they were not entirely alone. Beth saw at the far end of the lot what appeared to be a mini convoy of white panel vans. Trepidation rose in her heart. Since the invasion had started, strangers only meant one thing--danger.
“We have to find somewhere else to do this!” she said as she grabbed the sergeant’s arm.
“There is no place else,” he answered as he witnessed Beth’s distress. He was under the same notion; the four vans most likely, didn’t mean good news, but right now they were out of options. He planned to set Beth up to stand guard while he put his rudimentary first aid skills to use on Deb. He wasn’t sure what upset him more, the sight of those sterile white panel vans or the impending surgery.
He’d done some basic first aid in the field, even once going so far as to splint a man’s leg that fractured during a weekend excursion in the White Mountains. But nothing he had ever done before even
Well, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about the doors being locked. Someone had kicked the door off its hinges, and it looked fairly recent. They hadn’t been kicked in; the wood was splintered in a hundred different places. Someone had driven their car up there and let it do the leg work for them, so to speak.
Beth was cradling Deb in her arms and stroking her hair. She felt that it was more for her comfort than Deb’s. Deb had stirred once or twice, it looked like any effort was draining for her. Beth looked over towards the vans and through the darkly tinted windows she saw the glowing ember of a cigarette that was pointed directly at her. She felt somewhat uneasy with just the prospect of what or who were in the vans and now that she was certain somebody, or some bodies, were there just staring at her, her distress increased tenfold.
“You had better lighten up on your friend’s head.”
Beth screamed out in surprise. The sergeant came up the other side of the truck and she had not even noticed. Meanwhile, her silent caresses had become more like delousing procedures.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” the sergeant said apologetically.
“There’s somebody in that second van,” Beth said trying her best to not look over, but failing miserably.
“Well, I’ve spotted at least five people in three of the vans, and they haven’t said or done anything yet; so let’s just try to put them out of our minds and concentrate on your friend.” Even the sergeant thought his words sounded hollow, but the girl seemed to swallow it. “By the way, my name is Sergeant O’Bannon… Grady.” he said, extending his hand.
“Oh, huh? Yeah. I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve known you for years and I never even knew your name until now. I’m Beth and I can’t ever express how grateful my friend and I are for your help,” Beth said as she took the sergeant’s hand.
“Well, how grateful your friend is largely depends on how well I do right now,” the sergeant said, gesturing towards Deb.