Kevin Anderson - Ill Wind

When Lieutenant Bobby Carron’s eyes opened, he was fully awake but completely disoriented. Nothing familiar, just a big blank spot where he thought he should remember things. No longer in his Bachelor Officer’s Quarters at China Lake, he lay in bed in a strange, dim room. In pain.

Bobby saw stark featureless walls, smelled antiseptic-clean bedding, felt a cottony mass in his mouth as his tongue ran over his teeth. Bad, flat, rancid-tasting mouth. The window blinds were drawn, and the little sunshine that diffused through looked as if it had been washed and sterilized. Where the hell am I? Somewhere outside the room came a muted chanting, like the throbbing of machinery. He couldn’t figure out what it was.

His arms ached as he tried to move. He’d been taking a cross-country flight with Barfman Petronfi, on his way to the beach where he could bask in the sun and forget about the Navy. He’d climbed aboard his jet, taken off for Corpus Christi—

Bobby tried to raise his head. He felt bandages, constraints. And then it came rushing back to him: losing power, electrical systems crapping out, watching Barfman’s plane break apart and drop away into a bright explosion. His own aircraft failing, straining to reach the Albuquerque airport. He had ejected, watching his own A/F 18 plummet into the desert, as the rocky ground rushed up at him like a giant slapping hand….

He had survived, but how badly was he hurt? His body shivered in waves of pain and numbness. Was he paralyzed? Where was Barfman? Where were the nurses? Why weren’t they watching him? How long had it been?

He struggled to raise himself on an elbow. They didn’t even have a monitor on him! If this was a real a hospital, then they should have diagnostics, air conditioning, not this damned silence. He grabbed the call button by his bed, but found only bare wires.

Bobby drew in several deep breaths. In all his years in the Navy, he’d never even been in a hospital except for the “turn your head and cough” routine. He forced himself to relax back on the pillow. Listening, Bobby couldn’t hear a cart creaking down a hallway or even a nurse going to check on a patient; he heard only muted crowd sounds outside the closed window.

His mind raced through the options. If he was in a hospital, something was definitely wrong. He should hear something .

Bobby pushed back the sheets. Moving like he was in a room covered with broken glass, he lowered himself to the floor. He discovered several sore muscles and bruises that he hadn’t had before. His right leg was wrapped with a cloth bandage, but he could put weight on it. Both ankles felt swollen. His head throbbed with the fuzziness of pain-killers and sedatives, and a ringing sound echoed in his ears.

His body struggled to remember how to walk. How many days had he been out? He grunted, trying to keep the pain away.

Bobby shuffled toward the window, one step at a time across the cold tile floor. A minute later he stood at the window, staring down at the crowd gathered below.

Outside, thousands of milling people filled a plaza, chanting: “String ‘im up, string ‘im up, string the bastard up!”

The crowd clustered around a platform like an angry river against an upthrust rock. Timbers had been erected in a crude gallows. Bobby blinked in shock. What the hell?

Five men dressed in sand-colored camouflage uniforms stepped on stage. A lanky boy, no older then sixteen, staggered up from the ground, fighting against the ropes on his legs. Thrusting arms helped him along.

The boy was roughly led to the gallows at center stage where a burly man in uniform met him. Some of the people continued to chant, others seemed oddly subdued.

The uniformed man held his hands above his head, and silence fell like a blanket on the plaza. The boy kept struggling, shouting in terror. The uniformed man gave another signal, and one of the guards stuffed a gag in the prisoner’s mouth.

Bobby leaned forward to hear the man’s shouted words. He rested his numb fingers on the grille of the window. Had the world gone crazy? Was he hallucinating?

“—a chain that depends on the strength of one link. And whenever a bad link threatens the good of the whole, it must be removed! I don’t like what circumstances have forced me to do, but now more than any other time in our history as a nation, we must adhere to the law without question. The president has given us explicit instructions. The rules are just. Our future depends on strict obedience.” The man looked grim as he surveyed the crowd. No one cried out, murmurs ran through the periphery.

One of the men in camouflage threw a long rope over the gallows arm. Another quickly stepped up and secured the noose over the neck of the young boy who whipped his head back and forth in panic; his hands were tied behind his back. The burly officer stepped back as the airman tested the noose.

“My sworn duty is to protect the people of this city. The odds are stacked against us, but I will not allow looters to make things worse. Any person who refuses to work with us is a threat to everyone.” He jerked a thumb behind him.

Immediately, three men stepped forward and grasped the rope. On the count of “Ready, ready, now!” they pulled the rope, jerking the young man off his feet.

The boy dangled in the air, kicking his feet and swaying back and forth as he struggled. His body arched, his elbows spread out to strain against the ropes binding his wrists. His chin jerked from side to side as he twisted his head. Within minutes, his face swelled into a dark, bruised purple. A dark wet stain spread from his crotch.

Bobby stumbled from the window. He felt his stomach tighten as he tried to vomit on the floor, but he heaved only sour saliva.

He shook his head to clear it. The entire scene seemed like a morality play in hell. He eased himself back onto the edge of the bed, stunned. With this brutal frontier-style justice, he must be in some Third World banana republic!

The door of his room swung open, and a grim-faced staff nurse stared at him. She raised her eyebrows. “You’re awake, Lieutenant. You had a terrible concussion, and we didn’t have our usual facilities to treat you. I hope you’re feeling better?”

“I—don’t know.” Bobby blinked his eyes in shock.

The nurse glanced at the window and strode over to close the blinds. “You’d think the damn kids would know by now that the curfew’s serious. Makes you wonder how many more times they have to set an example before it finally sinks in.” She came over and inspected the wrapping on Bobby’s legs. “It’s good you’re moving around. I need to contact the military liaison.”

“And he just happens to set up his gallows right outside the hospital?” Bobby couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Why here?”

The nurse shook her head, scowling toward the window. “No, he’s get several stations all around the city. If the general’s going to make a good example of it, he has to make his punishments visible to a lot of people, and these days communication is very more difficult. Can’t just pick up a newspaper or turn on CNN anymore, you know. Getting word out about the curfew was tough enough.”

Things were moving too fast. Bobby swallowed, still tasting sour dryness in his throat. “But why is there a curfew at all? And why hang anybody who breaks it?”

“The general’s enforcing martial law against looters and rioters. No one likes it, but without those drastic measures, the VA hospital would of been taken apart for drugs and equipment. We got guards stationed at every entrance.”

“But why is there martial law? What’s happened?”

She smiled and patted his shoulder. “You got a lot to catch up on, don’t you? You’re lucky the general wants to meet you.”