PART TWO:

Revelations

Officer Braddon hurled a Molotov Cocktail over the makeshift barricade of debris and wreckage. The homemade bomb racked the hurricane center’s foundations, set Braddon’s teeth to rattle in his mouth. He risked partly exposing himself so that he could release a slow string of shots from his Winchester Rifle. Mutated humans fell before his onslaught of fire and lead. Beside him, an elderly man threw another cocktail over the barricade. He clamped his hands to his ears to shield them from the ensuing blast. Zombies, mutated dogs, and other deformed things halted their hunger-driven ascent to the survivors’ hastily erected fort. The smell of diseased flesh caught in the defenders’ throats.

Braddon released another shot from his rifle and quickly ducked behind the barrier. A woman with black hair and dark eyes came up besides him.

“What’s the situation?” the officer asked.

“The others are fine. Just a little spooked.” she reported.

“Thanks Miranda. Now get a gun and start shooting.”

Miranda nodded and took off into the heavy bronze door that Braddon and the elderly man were protecting. She came back with a small pistol and took a place at the wall of sandbags and wreckage. A mutated dog managed to evade Braddon’s expert shots and scrambled up the short defense. Most of its fur had fallen out, flesh exposed and covered in some shiny liquid. Crazed eyes seemed to harbor oblivion, seemed to gather Miranda into its bottomless depths. Paralyzed by terror, Miranda could only scream as the dog’s canines sank into her arm. The mouth clamped shut and nothing short of a miracle would release it.

A miracle or a bullet to the skull.

The beast yelped as it was blasted away by the elderly man’s hand gun.

“Thanks Horace.”

Horace smiled, a gummy tugging of small lips, and lit another cocktail. “Duck!” all the combatants fell to their knees. Debris and unidentifiable parts rained on top of them. Braddon recovered first. He peeked over the rim of the barricade and saw that the zombies were relentless. More, a seemingly endless column of undead, came spilling through the double doors.

We’re gonna die here.

The thought came unbidden to the young officer. His mind went back to the time when he was a fresh rookie, not too long ago. He had been so optimistic, untainted by the cynicism that seemed to plague most of the veteran officers. But now, when the entire city was overrun by monsters that would make angels shudder, Braddon was losing his jovial disposition. They were running out of ammunition. They were running out of hope.

God help me. Braddon thought, squeezing off another spray of bullets.

And, as though his impromptu prayer were answered, gunshots could be heard from behind the army of undead. Flashes of gunfire could be seen from the entrance. From beyond the haze of smoke and flittering debris four humans were revealed. Humans! “They must be crazy!” Braddon whispered.

“Let’s help ’em anyway!” Horace shouted and chucked another Molotov into the fray. The blast knocked the creatures-including the new survivors- to the ground. But the humans, whether with speed borne of desperation or of instincts, regained their equilibrium faster than the sluggish zombies. Braddon lent his gunfire to their own as they cut a bloody trail to the barricade.

“Come on! Jump over!” the officer shouted. Four humans, two women and two men, hurled themselves bodily over the defenses.

“And a parting gift!” Horace laughed as he threw his last bomb into the host of mutated citizens.

“Quick! Into the shelter!” Braddon commanded.

“Braddon!” he turned to see who called his name.

“Maria!” stunned so that he nearly forgot the immediate danger, he embraced his thought-dead partner-Officer Rodriguez.

“Unless you wanna be a cannibals’ midnight snack I suggest you get your asses in there!” the old bomber man shouted. The two officers dove through the thick metal doorway. The door was shut behind them. Several other survivors placed a beam upon the brackets, barring entry or exit.

“Nice to see you alive.” Maria Rodriguez said, standing and dusting herself off.

“Same here. Where the hell were you?”

“Getting doughnuts.” Maria flashed him a smile.

God I’m glad she’s here.

“Who’re your friends?” Braddon gestured to the three teenagers with whom Rodriguez had made such a movie-quality entrance.

“This is Eric,” she pointed to a smug-looking punk with shaggy brown hair. He was dressed in a green shirt with jeans and Vans sneakers. Eric nodded his head at the male officer. “This is Lillith.” this to a strawberry blond youth with determined hazel eyes. She was breathing harder than her comrades but still looked ready to take on anything that crossed her path.

“Hi,” she said in a shaky voice. It seemed that exhaustion was taking a toll on them all. “And this is Kyle.” the last was a tall young man no older than twenty. He had a serious look to him, one that demanded respect and promised deliverance in exchange.

“I’m Officer Braddon, Maria’s partner. Nice to see you all. We need as many able-bodies as available to us.” “What do you mean?” this from the girl, Lily.

“It’s war out there young lady. It’s either do or die now. But come on, you guys look like shit.”

Rodriguez laughed and gathered her curly red hair into a pony tail.

“Always the charmer, eh Braddon?”

* * * * *

“What the hell happened to this town?” Eric asked Braddon in between bites of his pork and beans. The shelter had a massive storage of canned food that was more than enough for the twenty or so survivors inhabiting it.

“Damned if I know.” the young cop replied, chewing on wheat bread. “The only thing that I can tell you is what happened to me.”

Eric shoveled another spoonful of beans into his mouth. He didn’t like this cop. And he liked even less that Rodriguez had not left Braddon’s side since they reached the hurricane center. While Braddon finished his sandwich in order to begin his tale, Eric studied his surroundings. The ceiling was high and domed, giving them a feeling of a wide open space. Obviously there were no windows but only a claustrophobic would feel uneasy about that. A storage room stood to the rear and ventilation shafts ran all over the ceiling, pouring pleasantly cool air through grilled vents. Everything was steely gray and shadows deepened in the corners. The emergency lights were on, providing enough illumination to quell the paranoid survivors’ qualms. Small groups were scattered but close enough to each other to feel unified in this time of horror.

Eric looked to Lillith, who was speaking with Maria. The cop was showing Lillith the correct stance to lessen the recoil of a fired shot, and the best way to implement the laser gun that Kyle had purloined at Joe’s Needs.

Amazing, Eric thought.

Lily had always been meek and quiet until the battle at the supermarket. Something had clicked within the young woman that seemed to eradicate her fears-or at least hide them. There was something compelling and fundamentally curious about the new set of her jaw, the alien glint in her honey brown eyes, and the way she carried herself. He then stared at Rodriguez, that Amazonian woman who dispensed jokes as easily as he did. She understood what a good laugh could do in a time of crisis. She was beautiful and her masculinity vied with the delicate structure of her face, the plush fullness of her naturally ruby lips. Her light colored eyes seemed odd in her tanned body but Eric thought the strangeness was exotic.

“If you look any harder she’ll almost hear you mentally unzipping her pants,” Kyle’s voice startled Eric out of his erotic reveries. Eric blushed and laughed.

“Am I that transparent?”

“Dude, you’re like glass.” Kyle smiled and loaded his .45 pistol. The hunting rifle leaned against his leg.

“That’s a nice gun.” Braddon observed with a professional eye.

“I like to think so.” Kyle responded.

“How did a civilian like you get a firearm like that?” “I’m part of the N R A. So was my old man. And his pops, and so on. Tradition almost.”

“You have a license for that thing?” the cop asked, fitting into his role perfectly.

“Yeah, it’s in my other jacket. You know, in the house with Lily’s dead mother and sister. Sorry, I didn’t think to grab it in case a zombie wanted to see my credentials before I shot it.” Kyle slammed the clip into the gun and said no more.

Eric wanted to laugh out loud. Kyle’s scathingly sarcastic statement seemed to strike a nerve.

“You think you’re above the law son?” the cop demanded, standing up.

Kyle only looked up at him.

“No. But right now I’m more concerned with getting my friends out of this hellish city alive. And don’t call me son. You’re not even five years older than me. So sit down and finish your sandwich.”

“You think your smart mouth intimidates me? I’ve dealt with serial killers, rapists, sociopaths, and anything else the Devil sees fit to fill this city with. A little punk with a gun doesn’t frighten me. Under different circumstances I would have you arrested. But now I’ll be content with kicking your scrawny ass.”

“I’d like to see that.” Kyle stood up. Electricity charged the air between the two men as they fixed each other with glares.

“God, you can’t leave men with guns alone anymore.” Rodriguez’s light voice made the quarreling men turn their heads. “Look, there are bigger baddies out there than what’s in this room right now.” the policewoman said, taking a seat and sitting in it backwards. “So Braddon, tell me what happened to you earlier.”

Both reluctant to bow down first, Lillith took it upon herself to take Kyle away on the pretense of gun-related questions.

“Asshole,” Braddon breathed.

“Watch it, that’s my best friend.” Eric warned. Braddon seemed to say something else but stifled it at a look from his partner. He breathed in a calming fashion and sat down in his foldable chair.

Collecting his thoughts, the cop began.

“I was at West End, the usual thugs causing the usual trouble. Anyway, I managed to arrest two delinquents, suspects in that hit-and-run a while back.”

“I remember.” Maria nodded.

“When I got to the precinct Detective Cray was shouting and issuing commands left and right. I asked him what the hell was going on and he looked at me with crazed eyes.

‘What’s wrong? What isn’t wrong?’ he had said. ’In the last half hour five murders have been reported. Seven in the hour before that. The morgue is getting crowded for God’s sakes!’ he was nearly pulling out his hair.”

Braddon shook his head and ran steady fingers through his short dark brown hair. “The worst thing about the murders was that when our officers went to investigate they joined the death toll. Gray, Lonny, Lydia…all of them are dead.”

“No…” Rodriguez stared at her partner in disbelief. She even hoped that he was playing a cruel joke on her. Braddon held out a hand to her. She stared it before letting her smaller hand be sandwiched in between his larger ones.

“We tried to contact you but your radio was off.”

“I was on my break…if I had known…”

“It’s not your fault. It’s these zombies’ fault. They killed our friends, not you.”

They shared a tender moment of mutual comfort. Eric looked away, jealous and ashamed that he was envious of the policeman. Only when Braddon continued talking did Eric return his attention to them.

“When we sounded the Blue Alarm we hoped that you would have heard it and come here, to the hurricane shelter.”

“But why did you guys want to evacuate the city?” Eric asked. Braddon looked at him.

“I-I never thought about it. I only followed orders.”

“Whose orders?” Maria questioned.

“General West’s orders.”

“West?” Eric looked at the officer with surprise.

“Do you know him?” “Maybe. What’s his first name?”

“Geoff. Geoff West.”

“No fucking way.” Eric’s eyes widened into saucers. “Kyle! Kyle get over here!”

Kyle and Lillith rushed over, expecting nothing short of another zombie invasion.

“What? What is it?”

“What’s your father’s name?”

“Geoff West. Why?”

“Kyle, he’s here man. He’s here in the city.” “No. That’s impossible. He can’t be…” A mix of terror and confusion fused on his face.

“Why is that impossible?” Braddon asked, perplexed.

“Because my father is dead.”

* * * * *

Lillith looked at her friend. He was trembling and shaking his head. The .45 was dangling from a hand gone numb. He closed his eyes, lids sliding over brilliant blue orbs. His mouth opened but he could produce no further sound. Lily grabbed onto his arm and shook him.

“Don’t freak Kyle. Maybe it’s a mistake.” she didn’t know exactly how it could be a case of mistaken identity, what with the exact same name and station as a General in the Army.

“No, it’s no mistake. I‘m alive. Nice to see you again son.”

The group turned to find a tall man garbed in a trench coat and a dark green beret atop his head. A neatly trimmed brown beard streaked with gray crested a strong and prominent jaw. His mouth was bracketed by stern lines. His presence was commanding, coupled with an air of pride not easily broken. Lillith looked at this man who insinuated he was Kyle’s father and could not deny the resemblance. The blue eyes, lustrous brown hair, and warrior-like auras…this man was Geoff West.

“Dad?”

“Kyle.” the general smiled warmly.

Kyle drew back his arm and landed a punch square in his father’s face.

“You son of a bitch! You God damned bastard!” Kyle slammed his boot into the downed man’s ribs repeatedly. “I want you dead! I wish you did die!” Kyle’s venomous cursing metamorphosed into incoherent screams of purest rage.

Eric and Lillith pulled back on Kyle’s arms, pulling him away from his father. Kyle struggled fiercely, but Braddon and even Maria was needed to sedate the anger-blind youth. Geoff sat up, coughed up blood and even a tooth.

“That’s my boy. One hell of a greeting only a West could pull off.” the veteran laughed to himself. This brought on another fit from his son.

“You fucking psycho! You should be burning in hell!”

“Calm down Kyle!” Rodriguez commanded. The other survivors, drawn by the commotion, crowded them. “I swear to God I’ll handcuff you if you don’t calm down right now!” Rodriguez quietly but sternly threatened. Kyle spat in Geoff’s general direction and shrugged off Eric and Braddon’s grip. He turned away angrily, rudely pushing aside the other survivors.

Lillith ventured to go after her best friend. Eric stopped her.

“He needs to be alone for a while.”

She sighed and nodded, sending a longing look at her furious friend. Her attention was now drawn to the policemen conversing with Geoff.

“General West, what was that about?” Braddon demanded. Standing with the aid of his underlings, Geoff straightened his trench coat and regained some of his dignity.

“You’ve heard all you needed to hear Braddon. He was under the misconception that I had died.” “Misconception?” Lillith nearly laughed at the euphemism. She fixed the man with flaring eyes. “Soldiers came to his house, handed him your badges and told him the plane going to Brazil with you and Kyle’s mother on board had been shot down. There was a funeral in your honor. And you’re saying it was a misconception?” her voice was raising to a keening pitch.

Geoff looked at both his officers with nervous eyes. Then, the authoritarian emerged.

“What happened in our family is none of your business.” “Kyle had no family,” Eric declared. He took up where Lillith had left off. “He was sixteen when you supposedly died. You left him all alone. He sued independence and had to make due with means he could. Because of you, he had to do things he will regret for the rest of his life. And this is only when you ’died’. You were worse when you were ‘alive‘.”

“We all do things we regret son. We all do what we need to survive. I taught Kyle at least that much.”

“Sir, can you explain this?” Braddon asked.

“Not without my son here.”

“I’m not your son anymore.” Kyle had reentered silently. He seemed calmer and his voice no longer quaked with rage. However, his eyes were puffy with tears. “He died with you in that plane. He died with mom…” Suddenly he looked at his father with hope sparkling. “Mom! If you’re alive…then she must be-” “No, I can guarantee you son, that your mother is…lost to us.” Geoff looked up to the ceiling.

“Okay, this is getting really confusing. Sir, how about you sit down and tell us exactly what happened.” Maria pulled her commanding officer a chair. “I don’t know about your past but I think you owe Kyle some sort of explanation.”

The general stiffly agreed and took his chair. He sat down and looked into the face of his son with wonder.

“God you’ve grown.”

Kyle snickered.

“Ah, well,” Geoff shrugged and folded his hands. “As you all know, I am in the Army. The Green Beret division, where the best of the best, the cream of the crop come together and protect America. Because of military interest, I had a lot of missions to accomplish, a lot of secrets to keep. That is why your mother and I were not around so much.”

“Still, the time that she did have she made special because she loved me. I knew it hurt her to have to leave me so much. But you hopped at the chance of a new mission.” Kyle said acidly.

“I had to do what too few wouldn’t.” “Wake up Mr. West. For sure there isn’t a shortage of dead beat dads.” Eric added not too quietly.

“Is there something you want to say son?” Geoff demanded.

“I’ve already said it.” Eric gulped.

“Wait, so what happened in the plane at Brazil?” Braddon asked, trying to prevent another fight.

“It’s partly true. We were in pursuit of terrorists who were smuggling illegal weapons-the viral kind. If the government of Brasilia got a hold of these weapons then thousands could die.” “How noble.” Kyle’s voice dripped with sarcasm. Ignoring his son, Geoff went on.

“Someone within our team betrayed our location to the terrorists and we were gunned down. Most of us survived but a few didn’t…like your mother. She died in the plane crash. My team were without radio contact and we were trapped in the Amazon forest for a good while. There were things there that…” Geoff shivered. “Things that this city has seen. It was only by some miracle that my team and I survived. Since then, the Army has had me and the remaining members of the team examined thoroughly. That’s where I’ve been all this time.”

“Three months I can give you for being in the forest and maybe even half a year in the Army’s care but you were gone for three years!” Kyle exclaimed, anger rising once again. He was feeling dizzy. A migraine pounded in his temples. The murmurings of survivors began to slither around him like some malevolent serpent. His vision dimmed. Then, in the blackness behind his eyelids, he saw something…

There was commotion. Booted feet ran past my face. There was shouting, like someone dying a thousand deaths. Smoke blinded my vision and for that I was glad. I did not want to see what had made Terry scream like that. Blood was seeping out of me and I was so tired. God, where was he? Where was Geoff?

I heard a gunshot and a grunt of pain. There was a howling like none I have ever heard before. There were more voices, ones that I didn’t recognize. But I knew that they were farther away. So far that my comrades couldn’t hear them. I heard them in my mind…I had to warn the others before it was too late. Before they would die like I was dying now…

“NO!” Kyle yelled. He threw himself forward and out of his chair. He crashed to the floor and his eyes rolled in the back of his head. His mouth opened in a perfect O and a blood-curdling scream pushed out of his lungs and surged from his throat. His body jerked in spasms and he arched his back in extreme pain. Demons stabbed at his brain with their wicked tridents, laughing merrily and bathing in his hurt.

“What the hell is going on?” somehow he heard the voice.

“He’s having a seizure!” another replied. “Quick, don’t let him swallow his own tongue.” a third one replied.

Cold steel intruded his mouth. He bit down instinctively and his tongue slathered the perspiration-slick grip of someone’s gun. At length, the demons quieted down, put away their evil tridents. Their blood play was done.

Kyle convulsed one last time and his eyes closed in sleep.

* * * * *

She watched from the shadow of shadows. Her eyes pierced the deepest black. She saw him by the firelight the others were cooking by. She could even see his blue eyes from her location. She smelled the fear on him, the scent of pent up fury that had been accumulating since his parents had reportedly died. He was tall and strapping, the build of a warrior or perhaps, in another life, a knight.

Too, she could smell the love that his companions had for him. There glowed an imperishable bond between them that neither time nor time of darkness could rend. Content, the woman who kept to the shadow of shadows, slithered back into deepening night.

* * * * *

“Who’s Terry?” Kyle asked once he had recovered from his seizure. He still felt weak, his face pale and drawn, but he wanted the answer to his questions, questions that had persisted even while he was unconscious.

Geoff swiveled his head slowly to stare at his son in surprise.

“Who?”

“Terry. A comrade of yours?”

“What do you know?” Geoff sneered. Kyle saw the cruelness that entered his blue eyes, swift like a striking serpent. And that was what Geoff truly resembled. His skin was white like a snake’s underbelly, his jaw smoothed at the corners and a quick look about him as though he were tasting the air.

“I know that he died while you were with him.” he knew he sounded foolish but that was all he could gather from his episode. Geoff’s eyes widened, then narrowed dangerously.

“I don’t know a Terry. That seizure must have given you hallucinations.” “Seizures don’t cause hallucinations.” Kyle retorted.

Then what did? Kyle silently asked.

“Hey, you guys need to come over here,” Eric said, signaling father and son over from another group of survivors. Kyle went ahead and Geoff followed. The cop was hunched over a trembling woman. Her hair was dark and her skin too pale to be healthy. She was shivering as though from extreme cold yet she was drenched in sweat.

“Miranda, can you hear me?” Braddon was saying in her ear. Miranda made some pathetic sound and indicated her bandaged arm. Blood blossomed the white linen and the skin around the bite marks were an ugly scarlet. “Jesus, is there a doctor around here?”

“Um, I’m a doctor’s assistant,” a young man said, pushing through the crowd.

“What’s your name? Braddon asked.

“Greg,” thin golden glasses were perched on his long nose. He was blanched with terror but his hands were steady and sure as they checked Miranda’s forehead, the artery in her neck. “Her pulse is slowing, like she’s dying.”

Miranda’s eyes went wide and she began to groan and cry with renewed vigor. Braddon and Maria held her down. “I saw a lot of this in the hospital, right before the outbreak. She’s turning,” Greg stated gravely.

“No! I won’t become one of them! Damn them!” her voice was slurred, barely comprehensible. She bucked under Braddon’s weight and nearly threw him off. The policemen held her down, but they were beginning to worry. They had no drugs to sedate her, they could not tie her up, but they would be risking further infection if she was allowed to live.

“Just shoot the damned girl,” Geoff suggested, reaching for a hand gun in a holster at his belt.

“What? No!” Maria placed herself between Miranda and Geoff.

“Get out of the way Rodriguez. You’ll be killing us all if she is left to live. She’s a carrier now. She’ll be one of them, a walking corpse, a Cadaver.”

“But she’s not right now,” Braddon said. “No one will fire a single shot in here.” “Are you forgetting who’s in charge?” Geoff said with angry surprise on his face. He was not a man who tolerated insubordination.

“You rule in the Precinct. Not here. Different rules General. My rules.” Braddon said evenly, fixing his commanding officer with a hard eye.

“Maybe we could halt the disease,” Greg suggested.

“How?” Maria asked.

“This disease thrives in heat because high temperatures deteriorate muscle tissue and cause vital organs to malfunction.” Braddon looked at the doctor’s assistant with full comprehension.

“Kyle, Eric, Lily, go to the store room and bring out bags of ice. They’re in a large industrial freezer. Go, now!” the three friends rushed to the opposite side of the room.

“This is heavy,” Eric said.

“No kidding. I don’t think I can handle much more of this,” Kyle said. Eric wished he hadn’t said that. Kyle had been the rock upon which he and Lily had clung to throughout this ordeal. Where would they be if the waves of terror and panic shattered Kyle?

They opened the door and entered the storage room. Canned foods lined shelves and bottled water in cardboard boxes with plastic coverings lay in heaps in the corners. The large freezer the cop had told them about was in the northernmost part of the room. Acting with haste, they loaded six bags of ice, two bags each, and returned to the increasingly dramatic scene.

Miranda was bucking like a mad mustang, her body convulsing painfully. Throaty screams ripped out of her throat. Her skin was darkening to dusky red, then to a sick brown, the color of dried blood. Her flesh was thinning until it hung like drapes on her bones.

“Hurry, pour the ice right on her!” Greg said calmly but with masked urgency.

Kyle, Eric and Lily ripped open the bags of ice and gently but hastily dumped the contents on Miranda. Her skin actually sizzled and steam rose. The rapid decaying of her body slowed to a halt and her breathing became jagged but regular. She groaned and tossed her head lethargically from side to side.

Braddon and Maria sat heavily down on the ground beside Miranda, exhausted and a little scared.

“She’ll be fine for a few more hours.” Greg reported.

“Can’t we just keep pouring ice on her?” Eric asked, looking with sympathy and disgust upon Miranda’s withered body.

“No, too much cold stimuli would cause hypothermia. We can’t beat the disease. Not yet anyway.” Greg cleaned his glasses on his shirt and sighed. “Give her a lot of ice water or other cold liquids.”

“We should just kill her,” Geoff said, nearly snarling. “She’s a threat to us all.”

“No, she’s not. The disease is not contagious- at least not by simple external touch. Just don’t let her scratch, bite, or spit in your eye or mouth.” Greg pointed out.

“Then how did the entire city become infested so quickly?” Braddon inquired.

“I wish I knew, “ the doctor’s assistant confessed. “The only theory the doctors at Reagan Memorial Hospital had was that someone planted the disease.” “What? Who would do that?” Maria asked, stunned.

Greg only shrugged and shook his head sadly.

“I’m sick of this. We need to go. Right now.” Kyle said, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“If it was that easy would we still be here?” Braddon’s voice was tinged with annoyance.

“We need to draw the zombies here. All of them.” Kyle said, an idea unfurling in his head like the petals of a black rose. “What would that accomplish?” Geoff asked.

“There must be a back way out of this shelter. If we get them to come through the front then we can escape through the back. We need explosions to get their attention.”

“Are we just going to run for fifty miles, because that’s where the city limits are.” Braddon interjected.

“We can break into cars and wire them. We’ll leave in groups; women and children first with someone that has a firearm. And the last group, who will be fighting the zombies the entire time, will plant some bombs and be the last to go. It’s tricky, but it’s better than staying here until our supplies run out.”

“Good plan, son.” Geoff appraised him. He almost placed a hand on Kyle’s shoulder, but reconsidered upon seeing the icy glare. “We should execute it immediately.” Geoff continued, unabashed.

Braddon frowned. He didn’t like being upstaged by this kid. But the plan did have some shimmer of hope to it. After careful deliberation, Braddon reluctantly agreed.

“I just pray you can bear thirty heads on your shoulders if this fails.” he told Kyle. Kyle merely nodded. He seemed about to say something when a sudden and terrible pain lanced his head. He felt his body become weightless, his soul sifting from his body like dirt off a beaten road. He fell backwards, slammed his head against the concrete floors and slipped into comfortable unconsciousness…

I didn’t think anymore. My mind, once my most valuable asset, was useless to me. I lay there, half crushed beneath the plane and dying, dying slowly and alone. For a long while there was only the slow draining of blood, the fiery grinding of my bones, and the screams of my dying comrades. This is how I was to die.

And then there was a shape above me. I couldn’t see it, but rather felt it. A cold shadow cast over me like a blanket. There was the sound of heavy machinery, the harsh grating of metal against metal. There was the sweetest liberation. Someone was lifting a section of the plane off of me.

Strong hands grasped my arms, pulled gently, and placed me on a stretcher. The touch sent an image through my mind, bright and glinting like a dagger; a dog tag with the name J. Chavez engraved onto it. I didn’t dwell on the name, but filed it away for later scrutiny.

I couldn’t see who my saviors were for all the blood streaming into my eyes. I wondered idly if I would go blind. I even supposed it would be a blessing-not having to identify all the dead bodies of my friends, my husband. I wonder if my saviors found Geoff or even Terry, had helped them too. I think I asked them, but an inflectionless voice said,

“Pump her full of morpheme.” and I was cradled into blackness.