Jeff Brackett - Half Past Midnight

She still seemed dazed, so Cindy pushed past her and yanked it open. I pushed, she pulled, and Ken tumbled to the ground with a yell.

Debra knelt beside him. “He got one in the leg.” She took off her belt and tightened it around the limb. “Went all the way through.” She and Cindy checked him for other wounds while Megan and I watched for approaching enemies.

Finally, Debra called out that she was satisfied that his leg was the only injury. “It doesn’t look like he’s hurt too badly. It missed the femoral artery completely. But we have to get him back to Rejas.”

Ken had stopped his moaning. “Bullshit,” he spat through clenched teeth.

“Damn it, Ken,” I said. “This isn’t the time for you to play the damned hero. You’re going back to the hospital.”

Ken shook his head, and I thought he was going to argue. Then he hissed through clenched teeth, “Not bullshit to the hospital, bullshit to me not hurting too badly. This hurts like a son-of-a-bitch!”

Cindy grinned through her tears. “He’ll be all right.” We all ducked as another burst of gunfire sounded from the trees on the other side of the Humvee. “Assuming we get him out of here, that is.”

Our wreck had not only taken us off the main road, but had also separated us from the rest of our convoy. For the moment at least, no one seemed to notice us, and most of the gunfire remained concentrated about fifty yards up the road.

Larry had evidently greatly underestimated the size of our group, and I saw several of our Humvees and four-by-four trucks wheel off-road into the forest to flank his troops.

Fifty calibers notwithstanding, the enemy troops quickly realized just how greatly they were outnumbered and, as our flankers opened fire, they found themselves about to be outmaneuvered, as well. It took less than five minutes to completely rout them. Five frustrating minutes during which I could do nothing but sit and guard Ken.

Debra and Megan looked like they felt the same way. Just a few minutes after the shooting stopped, I saw Debra tense and signal Megan and me.

I slipped up beside her. “What is it?”

“Something moving up on the road.” She pointed. I saw a furtive movement on the road where we had slid down the embankment.

“There’s another one.” Megan raised her rifle.

Then Sarah stepped into the open where we could see her. “Sensei?”

We all sagged with relief. “Down here!” I yelled. “Sarah! Ken’s hit. We need to get him back to town.”

“We’re on our way!” She slid down the embankment to where we sat with Ken.

All in all, we lost four people and three vehicles. Seven more people, including Ken, were injured badly enough to warrant sending them back to Rejas. That meant that we also had to send people and vehicles back to care for them during the trip. By the time all was said and done, our group was down to eighty-six people and seventeen Humvees, pickups, and station wagons. In order to get our wounded back to safety, we had to send them in three vehicles, cutting our resources even more.

I walked back to the rear window of the lead wagon. Ken lay inside sleeping with his head in Cindy’s lap. “Take care of him, Cindy. We’ve all gotten used to his ugly face.”

She smiled. “I will. You just concentrate on getting that boy back.”

I walked up to the driver’s door where Debra sat behind the wheel. Leaning through the window, I kissed her softly, worried at the thought of being separated from her in dangerous territory, yet relieved that she would be out of the coming fight. She had as much knowledge of first aid as anyone in the group and would be more of a help with the wounded than in a battle. “Bring Zachary back.” I nodded. “And you come back, too.”

“You got it. “

Once more, she kissed me and cupped my cheek, then she started the engine. Through misty eyes, she ordered, “Go get my son.”

“I promise.”

Over the next few nights, we slipped easily back into our guerilla warfare mode. Each morning, we set traps in the road in front of them to slow them down. Each night, we sabotaged their camp or killed one or two of their guards. Finally, we had them down to a single Humvee and the truck.

Those last vehicles had all of the fifty-caliber ammo, but at least we had them pinned down. Or, at least that was what we thought until daybreak three days later.

“Sensei, wake up!”

If I had gained nothing else from the months of fighting, at least I had finally learned to bring my mind into focus the second I awakened. I opened my eyes to see Sarah hissing at me from a short distance away. “Problems.”

I sat up and started belting on my gear. “What’s wrong?”

“Larry’s gone.”

“What! How the hell did that happen?”

“They turned the tables on us. Sent scouts out and got our guards. I figure they pushed the vehicles down the road far enough that we couldn’t hear when they started up.”

“Even with the truck, they couldn’t all fit into two vehicles.”

“No. Tracks show most of them walking.”

“Damn it! Any idea how long ago?”

“Shift change was less than three hours ago. It has to have been since then.”

“Wake everyone up!”

We broke camp in record time and, within ten minutes, we were on the road. About half an hour later, we came across a small group of the enemy standing on the side of the road with their hands in the air. Another man lay on the ground at their feet. They must have heard our engines long before we saw them, but they made no attempt to hide.

Sarah and Billy led a small squad to surround the seven men and get their story. The rest of us kept a nervous eye on the surrounding forest, painfully aware that this could be a setup for another ambush.

After only a few minutes of questioning, Sarah trotted over to me. “They say Larry squeezed as many of them as he could in the Humvee and the truck and left the rest to fend for themselves. Most of them took to the woods, but this group wanted to try their hand at trading with us.”

“Trade?” I snorted. “What the hell makes them think we’d be interested in trading anything but bullets with them?” As soon as I said it, though, I realized I had missed the obvious question. “What do they have?”

Sarah cocked her head back to the man lying on the ground. “Eric.”

Megan and I both scrambled out of the Humvee. She beat me there by half a second. “Pops?” She lifted his head and cradled it in her lap. “Pops? What happened?”

He was in bad shape. Both eyes were swollen shut, and his body was a mass of blood and bruises. His right arm looked like it was broken in at least two places, and his left knee bent at an unnatural angle. Worst of all was the rib protruding through his side.

“-egan?” His speech slurred, and I realized that his jaw was broken, on top of the other punishments he had sustained. Tears began to leak from the corners of his eyes. “-egan? Ith your fadder he’e?”

“Right here, Eric.” Up until that moment, I hadn’t known how I would react when I finally found him again. Seeing my old friend like that, though, I couldn’t maintain my fury. For the moment, at least, all I could feel was pity. “I’m here.”

He turned his face to me and tried to open his eyes, but the swelling was too severe. “Thorry, Lee.” He swallowed, wincing as if he had swallowed broken glass. “Had ta do thomething ta ge’ clothe ta Lawry.”

“Yeah. Well, let’s not worry about that just now. We’ll work it out when we get back.”

He shook his head. “Ah not gonna make it back. Fucker meth-h-ed me up too bad. Th’ thombitch ith good, Lee. Be cayhful.” Megan looked up at me with tears in her eyes as she realized what Eric was saying.