William Forstchen - One Second After

John felt weak, sick to his stomach.

“John, let me take you back into town.”

It was Makala, who had come up alongside of him, slipping her hand into his.

He stopped and embraced her.

“Thank you for stopping me,” he whispered. “I was out of control.”

“It’s ok, sweetheart. It’s ok.”

She leaned up and kissed him, the gesture startling, for so many were walking by him now, seeing this and respectfully not looking directly at them.

He suddenly did feel weak, as if he was about to faint, and had to kneel down.

“Stretcher!”

He looked up and shook his head.

“John, you have a concussion. You’re suffering from shock; you need to lay down.”

“I must walk out of here. Just help me.”

He leaned against her, walking across the battlefield.

A battlefield, he thought. Memories of photos of the dead at Gettysburg, bodies lying in the surf at Tarawa, the dead and wounded marines aboard a tank at Hue. Always photos, but never in a photograph was there the stench.

The battlefield stank not just of cordite but also the coppery smell of blood, feces, urine, vomit, the smell of open raw meat, but this raw meat was human, or once human. Mixed in, the smell of vehicles burning, gasoline, rubber, oil, and, horrifying, burning bodies, roasting, bloating, bursting open as they fried.

The forest fire to either side of the highway had been a tool of battle but an hour ago. Now it was a forest fire raging, the heat so intense it could be felt from hundreds of yards away, moving with the westerly breeze, already over the crest of the mountain, moving down into the valley towards Old Fort, bodies, the enemy but also his own, roasting in those flames.

Now that it was over, hundreds were moving about, looking for loved ones, sons for fathers, mothers for sons, young lovers and friends looking for lost lovers and lost friends.

Film, yet again film. The scene from the Russian film Alexander Nevshy, after the battle on the ice, the mournful music, the haunting twilight effect of the lighting, wives and mothers weeping, looking for their fallen loved ones.

Again, though, this was no film; this was real. A boy, one of the tougher kids from the ball team, collapsing, lifted up the shattered body of a girl, cradling her, screaming, friends standing silent around him and then suddenly pinning him down as he dropped her, pulled out a pistol, and tried to shoot himself.

John staggered on.

A line of vehicles on the highway ahead. Wounded being loaded onto the flatbed trailer. Makala motioning for help. Hands reaching out, pulling him up, Makala climbing up by his side.

The sound of the diesel rumbling, exhaust smoke, they started to move, picking up speed as they cleared the ramp for Exit 65, the driver holding down the horn as the trailer came up State Street and then stopped in front of the furniture store in the center of town. All the furniture had been moved out, tossed into the street, except for the beds and sofas in the main display room.

But the facility was already overflowing.

“All ones here!” someone was shouting. “Twos over here!”

Four of the ones, all of them on stretchers, were lifted off and rushed inside.

John looked at Makala.

“I need to go in there.”

“John, it’s a concussion, not too bad, I hope. I think it’s best I just get you home and into bed. You should be all right in a week or so. Jen can take care of the burns.”

“No. I have to go in there. Those are my kids . .. my soldiers.”

She didn’t argue with him. A couple of townspeople helped him down. The last of the wounded off the truck, the driver revved it up, swung around the turn to Montreat Road, then turned through the parking lot of the town hall complex to race back to the battlefield.

John stood outside the door, hesitated, took a deep breath.

He let go of her embrace, stepped aside from her, and walked in.

He almost backed out but then froze in place.

It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life up to this moment. Worse than holding Mary as she died, worse than anything.

“Jesus, give me strength,” he whispered to himself, and then he walked in.

Dozens were on the floor, all with ones marked on their foreheads. Some were crying, others silent, trying to be stoic. Fortunately for some, they were unconscious. Every wound imaginable confronted him.

He walked slowly through the room. If any made eye contact he stopped, forcing a smile. Some he recognized, and he was ashamed of his lifelong inability to remember names. All he could do was bend over, extend a reassuring hand, and kept repeating over and over: “I’m proud of you.… Don’t worry; they’ll have you patched up in no time…. Thank you, I’m proud of you….”

He left that room and in the next one he truly did recoil and Makala came up to his side. He looked at her, wondering how in God’s name she had ever handled what he was looking at.

The two towns had nine doctors and three veterinarians Day one. One had since died. There were eleven tables in the room and on each was a casualty and around each was a team at work, the veterinarians as well in this emergency.

The anesthesia saved from the vets’ offices and the dentists’ offices was now in use. He saw Kellor at work and the sight was terrifying. Kellor was taking a girl’s leg off just above the knee. The knee was nothing but mangled flesh and crushed bone. Her head was rocking back and forth, and she was weeping softly.

Horrified, John looked at Makala.

“We’re using local for amputations,” she whispered. “We have to save the general for the more serious cases.”

“More serious?”

But he did not need to be told. Head wounds, shattered jaws, chest wounds, stomach wounds, though, were being triaged off because there were not enough antibiotics to treat them after the operation, if they even survived that.

He went up to the girl on the table. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, panicked, eyes like a rabbit that had just been shot, waiting for the final blow, and his heart filled. He knew her.

He grabbed her hand.

“Laura, isn’t it?”

“Oh God, I can feel it,” she gasped. “Hang on,” John said.

The sound was terrifying. Kellor was now cutting the bone with a saw. John spared a quick glance down. It was a hacksaw, most likely taken from the hardware store. My God, they didn’t even have the right surgical tools.

“Oh God!”

John squeezed her hand tight, leaning over, looking at her. “Look at me, Laura; look at me!” She gazed up at him.

“Laura, remember your song ‘Try to Remember’….”

“‘The kind of September…’ Jesus, please help me!”

The sound of sawing stopped; someone assisting Kellor lifted the severed leg off the table. Kellor stepped back from the table.

“Nurse, tie off the rest….” He pulled aside his surgical mask and looked over at John, then down at Laura.

“Laura honey, the worst is over,” Kellor said. “We’ll give you another shot of painkiller shortly.”

Sobbing, she nodded, John barely able to let go of her hand.

Kellor looked at John as they turned away.

“We’re out of painkiller except for some oxycodone,” he whispered. “God save her and all these kids.”

Kellor tore off the latex gloves and let them drop to the floor.

“Nurse, I’m taking five minutes; prep the next one.”

John felt guilty leaving Laura, but Kellor motioned for him to follow him out of the operating room.

“John.”

It was Makala.

“I’m needed here now. I’m finished with triage up at the gap.”

He nodded to her, but she was already turned away, motioning for an assistant to pour some rubbing alcohol on her hands.