Officer Of The Watch: Blackout Volume 1 (7 page)

Mike followed Eric to the nearest of the cars.  They disconnected the filling hose and Eric set up the pump.  They were waiting for Bill to come back with the gas can when Mike nudged Eric's leg with his foot.

"You don't think there's a FEMA shelter in the city, do you?" Mike asked.

Eric shrugged.  "I don't know, to tell you the truth," he said honestly.  "But I doubt it.  I mean, if FEMA was going to be anywhere, don't you think they'd be right here, dealing with all of these downed planes? I mean, think about it, Mike.  This happened completely out of the blue.  There wasn't any time to set anything up ahead of it, and there's no way to coordinate it now with all of the comm. lines and power lines across the country down."

"Then why'd you agree to come to the city with us in the first place?" Mike asked.

Eric opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by three loud pops from inside the store.  Eric froze and Mike's hand went instantly to his sidearm.  They both stood, eyes locked on the door, as Bill came staggering out holding his left shoulder. 

Bill took three steps into the parking lot, coughed, and collapsed to the pavement.

Ch. 15

            Knock Knock

Joe, Chris, and Henderson formed a three point perimeter, their backs to Tom as he knelt in the massive parking lot of the stitching yard.  The lacework of tracks and stalled trains was behind them, and they stood on the broad, flat black-top expanse that separated the railroad yard and the posh Lafayette Shores neighborhood. 

Tom breathed heavily through his nose.  It was a hot afternoon, and they'd been on the move for the better part of an hour and a half.  He had been more used to this kind of pace in his younger years.  Still, he didn't run the way his wife, Jen did.  She was damned near religious about her 0500 laps around the neighborhood. 

The running shoes sticking out from under the blue tarp in front of him weren't Jen's, but he did recognize them.  Tom ground his teeth and lifted the tarp.  Brown curls framed a middle-aged face that he recognized.  He closed his eyes and let the tarp drop.

For a moment, the world reeled, and Tom had to stick out an arm to catch his balance.

Joe glanced at Tom briefly, then turned and scanned his section of perimeter.  He caught movement over by one of the parked tractor trailers.  Joe whistled and pointed, dropping to one knee.  As if on cue, a young man stepped out from in between two trailers, both hands held high.

"You guys Cops?" the young man called, walking cautiously forward.

Joe stood and took two steps forward.  "Hands!" he called.  "Show me your hands, palms out, arms stretched."

The man did as he was instructed, and he stopped.  Joe approached him slowly.  Chris and Henderson shifted their position slightly so that their backs were towards each other.  Joe knew if he glanced over his shoulder Tom would be covering him from behind.  When he got a couple of steps away from the young man, he stopped and lowered his rifle.

"Look," Joe said, "you have two options.  I can frisk you, clear you, and we can talk.  Or you can turn around and walk back the way you came.  Got it?"

"Are you guys the cops?" the young man asked again.

"Do I look like a cop to you, son?" Joe asked, and the young man shook his head.  "Okay.  So, which is going to be?"

"Go ahead," the young man said.  "I got nothing on me."

Joe nodded and stepped forward again, slowly.  He kept his right hand close to his sidearm as he carefully swiped his hands down the man's arms, torso, and legs.  Satisfied, he took three steps back and held his rifle at the ready, but not quite raised to his shoulder.

"Walk in front of me," Joe said, "and keep your hands where we can all see them.  You leave when we say you can go, and you answer questions straight up.  We'll do our best to do the same, got it?"

The young man nodded and started walking, arms stretched out.  After a few steps, he relaxed a little, and dropped his hands at least.  Still, he was careful to keep them well away from his pockets, which was good.  When they reached Tom, Chris and Henderson fell in close enough to hear the discussion, but they kept their focus outward.

"Did you know her?" the young man asked.

Tom's head popped up, and he growled, "Yes, did you?"

The young man shook his head slowly.  "I never saw her before...before today."

"Were you here?" Tom asked.  "Were you a part of this?"

"No, sir," the young man said softly.  "I saw it, though.  I was up on top of one of the warehouses back there."  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.  "And I saw these guys come from the weigh station.  They were pushing and draggin her, and they were pretty rough about it.  They got her down here, and there was some yelling.  I couldn't hear it enough to understand it, but I could hear it.  Then this guy, he just shot her."

"What did that guy look like?" Joe asked before Tom could speak.

"I don't know, really," the young man replied.  "Short hair, dark sunglasses, and he was with a group of guys dressed pretty much like him; all dark grays and blues.  They went and got into two Humvee's on Hampton Blvd.  and drove off in them."

"Wait," Tom said, and suddenly his eyes were intense.  "The Humvee's worked? They drove off?"

The young man nodded slowly.  "Yeah.  The noise of the engines was what drew me down here to begin with.  I stay in a shitty little mill house back up Gleneagles with my grandma.  I was on the porch and heard them rumble by when everything else was dead quiet...except for an occasional gun shot."

The young man's eyes dropped for a moment on the tarp, and he suddenly turned his back.

"I put the tarp over her," the young man said after a long moment of silence.  "Didn't seem decent to just leave her like that."

"JT," Tom said suddenly, "we've got to roll, and you know it.  These guys could decide to roll back through."

Joe nodded and motioned for Chris and Henderson to follow him.  Joe squeezed Tom's shoulder once and nodded to the young stranger.  He led the men off a little way and they waited for Tom.

Tom knelt and tucked the tarp around the young woman's body so the wind couldn't catch it.  When he stood, his eyes were red.  He looked at the young man and said, "Mollie.  Her name was Mollie.  Go home to your Grandma."

Tom turned and walked away from the stranger.  He reached the men and broke into a slow trot that would eat distance and preserve as much endurance as possible.  Joe brought up the rear guard, and he lingered a moment.  He watched as the young man made his way back towards the train tracks and the warehouses.  A couple of times he looked back and waved before disappearing between some transfer trucks.

Tom set a hard pace, and it was all the group could manage to stay together.  Once they were past the fence that partitioned the port from the residential area, Tom began to gain more confidence with every turn.  Finally, he made a left onto Sunrise Cove Court. 

There was a Tudor style cottage, an all brick carriage house, and a two story cape cod with a wraparound porch and a bright green tin roof.  Tom slowed once they reached the cul-de-sac, and he stopped in front of the Cape Cod style cottage.  Joe, Chris, and Henderson watched the houses around them and the street behind them as Joe ease his way up the porch steps.  He stepped up to the green door and stood a little to the side of it. 

Tom thumped his hand twice on the door and then tapped the glass once with his wedding ring.  He repeated the process and whispered, "We will, we will..."

After a long pause, from the other side of the door came a soft, "Rock you."

The double dead-bolt clicked and the door opened.  A small blonde woman with large blue-green eyes stood in a nightgown with a twelve gauge shotgun in her hands.  One hand went to her mouth, and tears immediately began streaming down her face. 

She dropped the shotgun, took two steps, and fell into Tom's arms sobbing.  Just then, four young children stuck their heads down from the second floor banister, and shouted "Daddy's home!"

"Baby," Tom said with a small chuckle, "I brought some of the guys from work home for dinner."

Jen's laughter and sobs blended together into one sound as she clung to Tom, and he clung back.

Ch. 16

The Stop-n-Shop

Bill fell forward and hit the sidewalk in front of the convenience store hard.  There was a moment of shocked silence, and Imogene let out a bone chilling wail.  She ran for Bill, her arms outstretched.

Christina caught Imogene just before she got to Bill.  She held the older woman tight, stroking her hair and whispering softly to her.  Eric was the first to reach the ex-ranger, and he saw that Bill's chest was rising and falling in shallow gasps.  Mike and Claire reached him at nearly the same moment.

Mike carefully pulled Bill's shirt away from his shoulder and tore the fabric where the exit hole was so he could get a better look at the wound.  Mike took a deep breath and stuck the end of his finger into the exit wound briefly.  Bill groaned and jerked a bit, but Mike took his finger out and wiped it on Bill's shirt.

"No bullet fragments," he said, relieved.  "I think it punched straight through.  Eric, run grab the medical kit out of the truck; I'm going to need it.  Claire, start cutting his shirt off and I'll try and hold him down the best I can."

Eric sprinted to the pickup and dug around a bit in the bed before he found the red and black med kits.  He pulled both and found they were surprisingly heavy for their size.  Eric ran as fast as he could manage with the awkward load in his hands.  By the time he got back to Bill, Mike and Claire had unhooked his leather suspenders and cut away his red shirt. 

Blood seeped from the small round wound on Bill's shoulder in a slow, steady stream.

Imogene was still struggling in Christina's arms, trying to break away and reach her husband, so Eric stood and went to her.  "Imogene, I know you're scared," Eric said, taking the older woman's face gently in his hands.  "But listen.  Mike and Claire did a fantastic job helping Tina, right?" Imogene finally made eye contact with Eric and nodded slightly, so he moved his hands down to her shoulders.  "They're going to take good care of Bill too.  But right now, they need their space and they need to focus.  Can you go with Tina over to the truck? We're going to need some water and some plain food like crackers, and she doesn't know where that stuff is.  Can you get that?"

Imogene nodded and finally let Christina lead her slowly back to the pickup.  Eric turned back to Bill, and his stomach lurched.  Mike had a double handful of gauze padding pressed hard against Bill's back, but it was already soaked through with blood.  A dark red stain was spreading on the concrete sidewalk beneath Bill also.  Mike and Claire exchanged a look that wasn't good. 

"If we can't get this bleeding stopped...." Mike said, unwilling to finish his own thought.
Suddenly, Eric snapped his fingers, and he ran through the still open doors into the store.  Inside, it was still as dark as he remembered.  Along the back wall, two aisles held various fishing, camping, and cooking necessities for campers who had forgotten to pack this or that.  Eric did his best not to look at the red splatters on the floor or the small red gas can that lay forgotten against the drink cooler next to Bill's revolver. 

A body was laying half in and half out of the storage closet between the restrooms.  Eric carefully nudged one of the bright white sneakers, but the body didn't move, so he left it.  He ran to the last aisle where the kitchen supplies were stacked, and he grabbed the four bags of sugar on the bottom shelf.  He snatched a bottle of rubbing alcohol, six tubes of antibacterial cream, and three bandannas from a rack on the way out.

"I've got an idea," Eric said, dropping to his knees next to Bill.  Eric popped open one of the bottles of alcohol and took a deep breath.  "You guys will need to hold him."

Mike and Claire put their full weight on Bill's arms and Eric slowly poured alcohol over the wound.  Bill groaned some more and tried to move, but couldn't.  Eric dried the area with a bandanna and carefully rubbed antibacterial cream all around the wound.  He then opened one of the bags of sugar and lifted it over the wound, but Mike grabbed his hand.

"What the heck are you doing?" Mike asked.

"I remember it from history," Eric said.  "In the Napoleonic wars battlefield surgeons used sugar to treat bullet and saber wounds."

"How does it work?" Claire asked.

Eric shrugged slightly.  "Something about osmotic pressures...I can't remember the details; I just remember that it worked better than any other treatment at the time.  If we don't stop this bleeding, Bill's going to die, right? What can it hurt?"

Mike looked at Claire, and they both shrugged.  Mike let go of Eric's wrist, and he poured a healthy amount of granulated sugar over the bullet wound.  Eric pressed the mound firmly into the wound and then poured more dry sugar on top. 

"Okay, let's roll him," Eric said, and he helped Mike and Claire roll Bill onto his side with some difficulty.

Eric dressed the other side of the wound the same way.  Once there was a good pack of sugar in both sides of the wound, they pressed gauze pads to both sides and wrapped the wound tightly with rolled gauze.  Mike and Claire sat for a moment and watched the wound, expecting it to bleed through immediately.

Much to their surprise, the dressing held and Bill's breathing slowed a bit.  After a few minutes, Bill's eyes fluttered and he tried to sit up with a groan.  Mike and Eric both jumped forward and held him down.  Suddenly, Imogene and Christina were there kneeling next to them.

"What....what am I?" Bill asked, groggily, his eyes half-open.

"You've been shot," Mike said.  "Try not to move or you could hurt yourself more."

Bill groaned and tried to say something, but his words were garbled and unintelligible.  After a few moments, he fell back, his breathing deeper and slower.  Mike checked his pulse and heart beat with a stethoscope and nodded. 

"His pulse is stronger," Mike reported, "and his breathing's clear.  I think the bullet missed all the main arteries and veins, and Eric's sugar trick stopped the bleeding.  He's stable for now."