James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

“Somebody get me a tourniquet!” George’s blood-slick hands kept slipping off Bobby’s mangled thighs as Quentin wrestled the dead vehicle onto the service drive. Everyone else in the SUV saw the RPG hit the Kestrel dead center and explode, killing the bird. It dropped out of sight. Quentin began fighting the wheel to get the big Ford to turn onto the first side street. The vehicle was moving at a crawl, its momentum nearly spent.

“Who was that?” yelled Ed.

“Arnold!” Mark shouted, seeing the potbellied man for the first time. The Franklin squad member was on his knees in the middle of the bridge, batting the flames out on his sleeves.

Ed finally found the door handle and flung it open. The rest of the squad bailed out of the disabled vehicle behind him. “Take defensive positions!” Ed shouted at them, pointing at the nearby houses, as he ran toward the flaming pickup. “Watch for more birds!”

Ed saw Arnold stagger to his feet, not on fire anymore but trailing smoke. He looked around dazedly for the Kestrel, not sure where it had gone down, as Ed ran back out onto the bridge toward him.

“Help me get him out of here!” George yelled.

“Oh my God.”

“Grab his legs!”

George and Mark lifted Bobby’s limp body out of the Expedition and set him on the concrete near the curb. George yanked out a knife and started cutting away Bobby’s shredded trousers. “Early! Get over here.” Early was the only other member of the squad besides George with formal first aid training. The gutter began to fill with blood.

“Already here Cap’n.” The two men bent over the still form in the middle of the street as the rest of the squad took cover nearby, nervously scanning the skies.

The heat from the Toyota was so intense Ed had to put his hand up to shield his face thirty feet away. He saw a few dark shapes inside the shattered cab, through the roaring flames, but whether they were seats or their occupants was impossible to determine. There could be no question that everyone inside the cab was now dead.

On the far side of the truck, through the shimmering waves of heat, Ed saw Arnold stumble drunkenly to the edge of the bridge and look down at the helicopter wreckage through the tall chain link fence designed to thwart suicidal jumpers and delinquents wanting to drop items on passing cars. Back when there had been passing cars.

The flames were baking Ed’s face like an oven. “Arnold!” he yelled, but his voice was lost in the roaring flames. Ed held an arm up beside his head to shield it, closed his eyes, and ran past the wreck. He reached the far side and opened his eyes just in time to see Arnold lose his balance and nearly topple over the railing. The RPG launcher slipped from his hands and fell out of view through a rent in the chain link. Then Arnold looked up at the sky and fell backward onto the pavement.

Ed leapt over bodies and ran to Arnold, on his back on the concrete. The big man’s limbs were sprawled awkwardly.

“Arnold! Arnold!” Ed yelled at him, checking him for injuries. His sleeves were still smoking. Ed’s hands and gaze moved up the soldier’s body, checking for cuts or obvious broken bones. Then he looked at Arnold’s face, and saw the man’s eyes were open and unblinking. “Shit. Arnold?” He dropped to his knees and started CPR.

“Jesus!” Weasel cursed as he ran past the burning truck, shielding his face. He joined Ed at the railing and looked around at the scene. “Goddamnit.” Then he looked down at Arnold. The man’s body shifted from side to side as Ed did chest compressions.

“Wait.” Weasel stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. He stared down at Arnold. “He’s dead.”

“No, he’s—” It was then that Ed noticed the hunk of metal sticking from the man’s skull, and the blood leaking out of Arnold’s left ear. “Fuck.”

The pool of blood surrounding Arnold’s head was reflecting the orange flames shooting out of the truck. The loss of one more man hit Ed in the stomach like a hammer, but he pushed himself up and away from the body. “Help me,” he told Weasel, as he began checking the bodies on the bridge for signs of life. It took the two of them less than a minute to determine Franklin had no survivors.

“Motherfuckers. Motherfuckers.” Weasel was staring at the burning pickup just a few feet away, seemingly oblivious to the heat. Sheila’s body was inside that inferno. His only comfort was that it had been quick for her, and that was no comfort at all.

“Weasel. Weasel! Grab their gear and any intelligence. Personal items. Can’t afford to leave anything.” Ed was pawing through the pockets of the fallen, with disappointing results. Franklin had been as short on ammo as they were. From the four bodies blown free of the wreckage Ed and Weasel recovered just five magazines, two of them only partially loaded.

One of the Toyota’s tires blew from the heat, sounding like a shotgun. Ed flinched involuntarily, then glanced up at the towering column of black smoke roiling up from the burning truck. It was over a hundred feet tall already and could be seen for miles. The helicopter had also probably radioed their position, if not their strength as well, which meant they were tempting fate with every second they stayed there. Thank God there’d only been one helicopter, or they’d all be dead.

The two men ran back across the bridge to the ruined Expedition. Ed waved Weasel toward one of the nearby houses to take up a covering position and then stopped behind George and Early and looked down.

George squatted in the street, staring down at Bobby. He ran a bloody hand through his short, graying hair, then started pulling equipment from the teenager’s gear. Early looked up at Ed but said nothing.

“There was nothing I could do,” George said through clenched teeth, patting Bobby’s pockets. “Both his femoral arteries were shredded. As soon as he was hit he was dead.” He concentrated on what he was doing, not looking at anything or anybody.

Looking between his two soldiers Ed stared at the blood-soaked pantlegs. What looked like a gallon of blood filled the curbside gutter and was trickling toward the storm drain. There was so much of it he could smell it. He shifted his weight and looked over George’s shoulder. Bobby’s pale, lifeless face stared up at the sky, eyes open and glassy.

Ed gritted his teeth and his hands shook as they squeezed his carbine but he didn’t let the anger distract him. “We’ve got to get moving.” When that didn’t get a response, he added, “We’ve got to leave him. Army’ll bury him.”

George sagged with a sigh. “I know,” he said. George stood, pocketing the rifle magazines he’d taken off Bobby. Early rose without a word. He looked at Ed without expression, then raised an arm and signaled for the squad to get ready to move. Ed could see his men prone on nearby porches or squatting behind bushes, looking over their rifles in every direction, and he glanced around quickly to get his bearings. The street they were on had overhead tree cover as good or better than any nearby. Ridgedale, if he remembered correctly, although the street sign had been torn down long ago to confuse those unfamiliar with the area. He pointed south.

“Go.”

The squad jogged down the sidewalks on both sides of the street in two ragged lines, more interested in putting distance between them and the downed chopper than being stealthy. Ed was last in line on the left. Quentin was half a dozen steps in front of him as they began jogging down the sidewalk, and he turned and jogged backwards for a while, staring back at the bridge and Bobby. He looked at Ed, but all Ed could do was shake his head. After a few more seconds Quentin turned back around, his expression both sad and full of rage.