“Drive, damn it!”
“Where?”
“Into town, you idiot. The hospital. Now drive!”
The road was rough, rubble strewn, in places nearly washed out, the truck swaying and rattling, and John winced with each bounce, the kids in the back crying in anguish. They finally reached the level stretch of the maintenance road and began to speed up, and then the thoughts struck him. “Slow down here. Let me get out!”
“Why?” Burnett gasped.
“You want to get shot again? I got a reaction squad down there. We weren’t sure of things. I’ll signal for you when you can start up again.”
“You playing me straight, Matherson?”
“May I burn in the hell if I’m not,” he snapped, jumping out of the vehicle and running down the road until he knew he was within sight of the observation bunker. He raised his arms, waving them. “We got vehicles coming in. It’s okay!”
He looked back to the lead truck and motioned it to come on. Nearly out of breath, his cracked rib sending a wave of pain coursing through him with every breath and every step, he ran ahead of the vehicle, leading the way. He saw several of his reaction troops stepping out from concealment, weapons raised, and he motioned for them to lower their rifles.
Reaching the bunker, he jumped in and grabbed the phone, cursing under his breath, waiting for Elayne to pick up at the switchboard.
“This is Matherson!” he shouted. “We got a lot of wounded coming in. They’re okay—friendlies. I want the alarm sounded. Get medical personnel over to our main hospital, and open it up. Move it. A lot of these wounded are kids. Get on it!”
He hung up and ran back to the lead truck. His lead reaction team had slung their rifles. A couple of them were crying as they looked into the flatbed.
“Damn it!” John shouted. “You’re all trained in first aid. Stop crying, get into the vehicles, start helping these people. A couple of you stand up where you can be clearly seen as we drive into town, so everyone knows it’s okay.”
They started up again, John back in the lead truck alongside Forrest, heading down the road, past the entryway to a long-abandoned vacation development. He saw the Edsel ahead in the middle of the road. What a difference a week makes, John though grimly. Last time, he had come limping back, head nearly busted open, and now he was leading this pathetic caravan of wounded from the very group he had just tangled with, and had tangled with before throughout the last year.
John leaned out of the window, waving frantically as a signal to Makala standing in the middle of the road. The four trucks carrying the backup reaction squads, which someone had apparently thought to mobilize out when he had gone off on a walk into the woods with two armed men, were behind her. He told the driver to stop fifty yards short, and he got out. Gasping for air, he walked this time rather than run, which might just set off one of his troops who might get trigger-happy, his running misinterpreted as a signal that he was trying to escape.
“Makala, I need you here now!” he cried.
She came running up to him. “Jesus, what is it, John?”
He pointed to the first truck and now emotion took hold. “They’re casualties from the air strike this morning. I’ve called ahead; the hospital is getting ready now to take them in. Just go look, look at what was done to them!” There was a bit of a hysterical edge to his voice. After so much death the last two years, he had wanted to believe that they were coming out of it. But now there was more and yet more, and the shocked boy holding the dead girl was just too much.
Makala went past him, up to the side of the truck, and looked in. Her hand went to her mouth. She stood in numbed silence for several seconds and then looked back to John. “Any of you with the reaction force who I trained as medics, up here now. Move it! Move it!” She climbed into the back of the flatbed.
John went up to the side and looked in at Forrest, who was obviously struggling to hang on to consciousness. “Thank God you came to us, Forrest. Hang in there, trooper. We’re getting your people into a hospital now. Just hang in there.”
Forrest looked up at him with a slight nod and reached out with his one hand, which was covered in blood. John squeezed it and turned to run to his car, shouting for the drivers of the trucks to clear the road and fall in at the rear of the convoy.
John swung the cumbersome old Edsel around and hit the gas, flooring it down the winding road straight onto Route 70, a good four-lane road that made the last few miles relatively pain-free for the sufferers who had somehow survived a grueling, torturous ride of over thirty miles on gravel- and rock-strewn fire lanes to swing around the Asheville troops deployed at Craggy Gap.
Hitting the main road, he slowed long enough for the six trucks that belonged to the reivers to gain the main road behind him, and then he floored it again, black exhaust bellowing out of his cracked muffler. Racing into Black Mountain, where the road began to narrow down as he passed the abandoned pharmacy, he laid on his horn. He could hear the old-fashioned siren that had been installed at the town hall wailing. People residing in the center of town were pouring out, running toward their mobilization points, which meant all doctors and nurses, either those licensed before the Day or trained as such afterward, were dashing to their assigned positions. Few knew yet what was actually going on, and at the sight of the old familiar Edsel, many turned and looked, shouting questions to John as he roared past them, narrowly avoiding T-boning an old pickup that came racing up out of Cherry Street, heading for the fire station. John cursed madly at the fool, actually thinking for a few seconds as the truck swerved to get out of his way that he would find the driver later and personally kick his butt, and then caught a glimpse of the driver—it was Reverend Black. John continued to honk and pointed for him to follow.
The hospital—which, a year and a half earlier, had handled over a thousand casualties after the battle with the Posse—was in the once-thriving furniture store across the street from the town square. After the last of the casualties of that battle had been moved out, Makala took charge of scrubbing the building down, stockpiling some supplies and then sealing it up if ever there were another mass disaster, epidemic, or battle. John skidded to a stop in front of the hospital, pointing for the truck behind him to stop in the street.
Makala leaped out of the back bed of the truck before it even came to a stop, and John could see she was crying. She was normally so professional as a nurse—now acting as a doctor—and trained to deal with such things, but the months of relative calm had taken the hard edge off her, as well.
“Merciful God, John, most of them are just kids.”
He could not reply, and then in another second, as if a switch had been thrown within her heart, she became the professional again.
“Triage right here!” Makala shouted. “Someone get the triage bag inside. Bring it to me, and get a table out here. Move it!”
Several of the recently trained combat medics with the reaction teams were out of the vehicles, racing to follow her orders. She looked back at the line of trucks, her voice carrying as noisy engines were shut off.
“Everyone listen to me!” she shouted. “No one move for a moment, please! Those of you who drove your wounded in, we’re going to offload your people as quick as possible, but wait for my personnel to do so. We don’t want to make any injuries worse than they already are.”
John felt as if he was slipping into shock, even as his wife took charge. Injuries worse than they already are? These people had endured a hellish exodus of thirty miles or more. It wasn’t like each had been carefully strapped to a backboard seconds after getting shot and airlifted to a rear-line hospital.