Gibson did not flinch or speak while Bobby continued to thrash and struggle against his bonds. Eventually, the chair toppled and both man and seat were sent crashing to the floor. By now, Bobby’s energy was spent. His attempts at breaking free had exhausted him of everything he had remaining. Now, he lay on his side, still strapped to the chair and sobbing into the cold and dust covered concrete floor. The two vicious looking soldiers hauled him upright and replanted the chair so that he was directly facing Gibson again. His head sagged, and his breath came in wheezing gasps.
Gibson cleared his throat with a series of rumbling coughs and adjusted his seating position so that he was more comfortable for the coming interrogation. He nodded to the doctor who then stepped across to check on Bobby’s wounds and his pulse rate. The man nodded at Gibson before stepping back again. For a while, nobody spoke as Bobby remained slumped in his chair, drooling and struggling to breathe.
“You were the only survivor we found, I’m afraid. So you’re our new best friend. We want the launch codes that Thompson gave to you before he shot himself. We want the nukes. We already have a few, but nowhere near enough to rid our lands of those things out there. Don’t you see that this is for the greater good, Bobby?”
“You’re fucking mad,” Bobby grunted, and let out a gurgling laugh that developed into a pain-filled sputter. “Do you want to know where the codes are?”
Gibson remained silent but watching him intently.
“Up your fucking arse,” Bobby snarled.
He glanced back at the bag containing Samantha’s body. He wanted to be cut free and given the opportunity to tear out Gibson’s throat. He wanted to taste the man’s blood as he sank his teeth into the soft tissue of his neck. However, he knew that was never going to happen. He was in a bad way, bleeding heavily, and becoming weaker by the minute. As much as he would like to hold out against them and maybe even break free, his own medical knowledge told him that his wounds would eventually get the better of him. No matter how determined he was, he could not hold out forever.
Glaring at Gibson, Bobby rolled his tongue over the rear teeth of his right lower jaw, searching for the cap that covered the detonator to the small explosive device that had been surgically implanted into his skull below his ear. His tongue brushed over a soft and pulpy gap between his molars. His brow furrowed for a moment with confusion as he continued his search. Finally, he noticed the amused look on Gibson’s face as he sat watching him in silence with his arms placed across his chest.
“You looking for something in particular?” Gibson taunted with a smile. He unfolded his arms and held out his palm, displaying the white tooth and the small detonator that was attached. “You didn’t realise that we knew about your little gadgets, did you?”
“Cunt,” Bobby slurred as his head sagged at the realisation that his last hope of freedom had been snatched from him.
The interrogation went on with Bobby refusing to cooperate. They asked him over and over on the whereabouts of his team and the launch codes and what they intended to do with them. Even if he had known where Stan and the others were, Bobby would never have told them. Gibson made threats one minute and then offered care and compassion the next. None of it had the desired effect. All that he received was Bobby’s obnoxious answers and ridicule. After an hour of fruitless questioning, Gibson finally stood up and let out a long and disappointment filled sigh. He turned towards the doctor and the other officer in the room and then nodded to the two burly men that were standing beside the door.
“Your determination and courage are admirable, Bobby,” Gibson said with a note of respect. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t help the situation for either of us. You have information that you’re unwilling to give, and I have no time to fuck around.”
He turned on his heel and headed for the door, the doctor and his second in command following him. Gibson paused, and whispered something into the ear of one of the soldiers and then glanced back at Bobby.
“Yes, sir,” the soldier nodded.
As the three men left the room, the two soldiers closed in on either side of Bobby. He tensed his body, dropped his head and clenched his teeth. The beatings and torture began. His howls of pain could be heard from far beyond the door as his tormentors set about inflicting as much agony as they could upon him, stopping short of killing him. It went on for a whole hour, Bobby taking the hits and the soldiers sweating profusely.
At first, it was slaps across the face, but as Bobby laughed at them, the open-handed whacks turned into clenched fists that rained down blow after blow. Still, Bobby refused to speak and taunted them all the more. There was nothing that he could have told them. He had no idea where Stan and the others now where.
When the soldiers realised that punching him would not work, they turned to causing him more discomfort in the wounds that he had already sustained, digging their fingers into the hole in his leg and enlarging the lacerations across his abdomen. Bobby did nothing but roar for the whole time, losing consciousness from time to time and being brought back to the real world with freezing cold water. Even the two men that were dishing out the punishment were beginning to tire, knowing full well that they were getting nowhere, while fearing that they would fail in their task.
Eventually, the door opened and Gibson stepped back into the room. He turned to the two sweating soldiers and raised an eyebrow. Their faces coated with perspiration and their eyes laden with fear, they looked away, refusing to meet his gaze. Gibson turned to Bobby and watched him for a moment. The floor beneath his chair was awash with blood and more was dripping in a steady stream from the seat. His face was twice its natural size, swollen and bloodied, leaving wafer-thin slits where his eyes used to be. All of his dressings were sodden and useless and it was clear that he was fading fast. His head rolled and lolled to the side as he coughed and sputtered, bringing up more blood that only added to the pathetic appearance of the man.
Gibson nodded, understanding that Bobby would not, or could not give him the information that he needed. He stepped forward and placed his hand upon Bobby’s head, patting gently with affection, and nodding his acknowledgement of the man’s bravery.
Bobby stared up at him, too weak to be able to say anything. Slouched in his chair, the best he could manage was a pain-filled grin that showed a row of broken teeth and split lips. His shoulders juddered slightly as he laughed internally, and tears began to pour from his eyes. He knew that he had beaten them, and the satisfaction of it was his final reward to himself.
Gibson shrugged and smiled down at him. Again, he lightly patted Bobby’s head and then lowered himself into a crouch so that their eyes were level with each other. There was a sadness in Gibson’s eyes, but it was impossible to know whether or not the emotion was genuine.
“Well done, son,” Gibson applauded with resignation. He smiled again and nodded, keeping his eyes locked on Bobby. “You’re one tough bastard, I’ll give you that. A true soldier. I only wish I had a battalion of you lads, I really do. I could storm the heavens with more men like you, Bobby. It’s just a shame that we found ourselves on opposing sides in all this mess. I could’ve used men like you.”
Climbing back to his feet, Gibson pulled a pistol from his belt. He raised the barrel and pointed it at Bobby’s chest, staring into his eyes. Bobby glared back at him, still grinning mutinously and nodding his head. His body stiffened as he kept his attention focussed on Gibson, staring him down to the very end. He welcomed the bullet, embracing it as a friend coming to release him from all the pain and suffering.
As the shot cracked, Bobby’s head arched back for a second as the round smashed through his ribs and blasted its way through his heart. He slumped back down into his chair, his head dropping to the side and still displaying the remnants of the defiant smile.
Gibson paused and watched the blood-soaked body settle before stepping back and turning for the doorway.
“What about him?” his second in command asked, nodding to Bobby.
Gibson stopped and glanced back at the body for a moment, considering what to have done with the courageous soldier he had just killed. Eventually, his face turned blank, and he shrugged as he turned and walked out through the door.
“Leave him to wake up,” he called over his shoulder with indifference. “Cut him loose and he can feed on the body of his pretty girlfriend if he wants.”
The Major closed the door, leaving the lifeless corpse of Bobby locked inside.
21
There was a tangle of tubes and wires connected to him, feeding him with oxygen and nutrients while the machines beside his bed continued to emit pings and display jagged lined readouts as they monitored his condition. Al remained still, his eyes closed, and the life-support machines being the only thing preventing him from fading out of existence. His chest moved as the ventilators pumped air into his lungs, but that was the only indication of life.
The dressings around his head covered much of his swollen face. Not only had the bullet smashed a hole through his skull, but he had sustained a number of other injuries as his limp body dropped and tumbled down over the hard, steel steps. The area around his eyes was swollen and almost black in colour. His nose was broken, and his lips were lacerated and bloated. He looked far removed from the man they had all been used to seeing on a daily basis. He was unrecognisable now. He had also sustained a broken arm, fractured hip, and a number of cracked ribs during the fall, and it was a wonder that he was still alive, though barely. Luckily, there had been no damage to his spinal column, and the medical staff considered it as a miracle that his neck had not been broken.
“We’ve done all we can for him with our limited resources and equipment,” the doctor said in a matter-of-fact tone as he checked the monitors and studied the medical charts. “The bullet fractured his skull but luckily missed his brain as it exited.”
Tina looked across at Tommy. He sat watching Al, bare chested and with his arm in a sling. He had refused to leave his friend’s bedside since he had been brought in. He looked tired; the dark rings beneath his eyes appearing like deep and dark holes in his face. He had not slept the entire time as he maintained his vigil over Al, and even while the crescendo of battle broke out beyond the walls, Tommy remained where he was. The worry in his face was plain to see and if it was not for Tina, he would have gone without eating, completely forgetting that he also needed to take care of himself.
“What happens now then, doc?” he asked in a flat tone and without taking his eyes away from the lifeless form lying in the bed.
The doctor shrugged and leaned over Al’s body, taking a closer look at his dressings and checking his pupillary response. He watched his face closely, looking for any indication of a reaction to the light or the pinching and prodding that he carried out on the soft underside of Al’s arm and ear lobes.
“We’ll keep him under for another couple of days and see if there’s any improvement. Eventually, it will be up to him whether or not he will pull through this. There’s only so much we can do here. If he makes it through the next few days, my main concern will be the long-term effects.”
“Like what?”
The doctor stopped what he was doing and turned to Tommy and Tina. He suddenly appeared like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a fast approaching car. He looked from one to the next as he straightened up and then began nervously fiddling with a pen that he removed from his chest pocket, as he jotted down notes upon the charts he held in his hand. He hesitated, hoping that they would forget the question and move on to something else. However, he knew all too well that they would not change the subject, and that both their attentions would remained fixed upon him until he gave them the information.
“You mean no one has gone over this with you?” he eventually asked without making eye-contact with either of them.
“Gone over what?” Tommy said menacingly as he leaned forward in his chair and fixed the doctor with a hard glare. “No one is telling us shit around here. What long term effects are you worried about?”
“Yes, well, we’ve had a lot to deal with. There have been a lot of casualties to take care of, and we don’t have enough medical staff to cope.”
“What long-term effects, doctor?”
“Well we can’t be sure yet, until he uh…”
Finally, the doctor looked up from his clipboard. He was hesitant to continue the conversation, but he knew that he had to now. He had inadvertently given them a minute amount of information and now they wanted the remainder.
“You need to understand, Tommy,” the doctor began. He cleared his throat and then folded his arms across his chest in a defensive posture. “Al has sustained a serious wound to his head. Not just from the bullet but also from the fall. Right now, he’s in a coma and might never recover. He’s on life-support, but we can’t keep him there indefinitely. There is a chance that he may never regain consciousness.”
“Go on.”
“If he
does
regain consciousness, then there’s always a possibility that he may have sustained… brain damage. For the first few minutes after being shot, Al was not breathing. He had a faint pulse, but there was no air getting into his lungs, and his brain was starved of oxygen. It took us a while to resuscitate him, and we have no idea what sort of impact that may have had in a neurological sense.”
“You’re saying that he could be a vegetable?”
The doctor glanced at Tina, his face betraying his nervousness and fear. He knew Tommy well but that did not give him any delusions of safety. Tommy was generally mild mannered, but he was well known for his aggressiveness when his placid façade was somehow removed. The people within the FOB had witnessed how the wiry man was capable of reducing hulking monsters to bloodied, quivering pulps. When backed into a corner, Tommy was capable of inflicting as much damage as a raging bull.
“It’s a distinct possibility, yes, and I suggest that you prepare for the worst,” the doctor replied with a nod and a trembling voice, laden with regret.
The room became silent for a while as the doctor watched Tommy. His feet shuffled uneasily and he continued to play with the pen in his hand as a light sweat broke out over his goose-bumped flesh. Again, he glanced at Tina, hoping that she could somehow prevent the unpredictable Tommy from losing his temper.
“So when will we know for sure? Isn’t there some kind of test you can do to find out?” Tommy finally asked, his voice sounding calm but with a faint hint of hostility.
“I suppose we won’t know for sure until, and only
if
, he wakes up. We just can’t tell right now, I’m afraid. All we can do is hope for the best. I promise you that we will do all we can.”
“Hope for the fucking best? Are you taking the piss?” Tommy growled through gritted teeth. “You can hope in one hand and shit in the other, doc. Get back to me, and let me know which one filled up first.”
“Tommy,” Tina said with warning, trying to remind him that it was not the doctor’s fault that Al had been seriously hurt. “We need to remain positive on this. You’re doing no one any good biting their heads off. Least of all Al.”
Tommy snorted and leaned back into his chair. He knew that he was taking his frustration out on the people who did not deserve it. The medical staff were doing the best that they could and if it was not for their care and expertise, Al would already be dead. With their treatment, he stood a chance at surviving, regardless of how slim.
“Thanks, doctor,” Tina said with a forced smile.
The doctor took that as his chance to escape and made a sharp exit through the door, walking briskly and turning into the corridor. Once out of sight, the patter of his footsteps increased in tempo and volume as he took off along the corridor.
Both of them sat in silence for a while until Tommy finally dragged himself up from his seat, wincing with the pain in his shoulder. He huffed loudly as he watched his friend for a moment. He took an unsteady step towards the bed and patted Al’s leg.
“You’re right, Tina. I’m just worried, and I don’t think the drugs are helping me to think straight. I should go and apologise for being a dick to that bloke,” he murmured, turning away from the bed and heading out into the corridor and looking for the terrified doctor.
It was just Tina and Al remaining in the room.
“It’s over, Al,” she said after watching him for a while. “The attack; we beat them, and you were right, they didn’t expect it. You were also right about where their command post and mortar line would be. Once we began the assault, they didn’t stand a chance. They were caught in the open and we took them by complete surprise.”
She looked down at her hands and studied her broken and grime filled nails. The base had indeed won a victory over the enemy forces that had attacked them, but it had come at a cost to their own side. Even now, it seemed unbelievable that the scraps of humanity were still trying to kill one another.
“We lost another tank, but the crew made it out,” she continued. She knew that he could not hear her, but she felt obligated to speak to him, hoping that communication would eventually drag him back from wherever he was. “The heli took some hits, too. The mechanics think they can patch it up and keep it in working order, for now at least, but I don’t think it will last forever.”
She went silent again and looked back down at her feet as she continued to wring her hands. She, too, was exhausted, having been unable to get any rest from the sounds, smells, and sights of the battle that remained imprinted upon her mind. Her tone changed from one of formality to one laden with emotion. The battle and her experiences had horrified her. The death and the sounds of gunfire, mingled with the screams of the dying, continued to buffer against her mind no matter how hard she tried to forget or justify what they had done.
“Graham didn’t make it,” she continued with regret. “He was shot through the chest when we attacked their mortar line. We were pinned down, and if it wasn’t for him the attack would’ve failed. He pretty much took the position by himself, Al. One tough bastard.”
There was no reaction from Al. He remained still and with his eyes closed, the machines beside him continuing to monitor him and beep rhythmically. There was more that Tina wanted to say, but her voice was beginning to break, causing her lips to tremble as a lump formed inside of her throat.
“It was complete chaos, out there. No one knew what was really going on. There were people running in all directions and with the smoke and shooting, it was hard to get a clear picture. It was horrible, and I never want to go through that again.”
She had considered making her confession to someone who was capable of hearing her words or even providing a degree of comfort and forgiveness from a religious point of view. However, there were no clergy within the base, and she was not about to turn to religion after a lifetime of refusing to believe in any God.
“There were a lot of families with them. Kids and old people. We saw hundreds of bodies out there once the smoke cleared. It was a fucking massacre. We took in a few of the survivors, but we couldn’t stay out in the open for too long. The infected were everywhere. There were just too many of them. We had to leave a lot of them behind, Al. We could hear them screaming for hours afterwards…”
She stopped speaking and trailed off, staring at the foot of the bed, remembering what she had seen and heard. The fear and pain contorted faces of dead children would haunt her for many years to come. During the height of the attack, blood-lust had filled the veins and minds of her troops. They had shot at everyone they saw as the tanks had mercilessly driven over the enemy soldiers and civilians, churning them into the earth beneath their heavy tracks as they blasted away with their huge guns. With the ferocity and momentum of the assault, it would have been impossible to have stopped the soldiers, even if she had wanted to.
She, too, had experienced the same ‘fog of war’. A red mist had veiled her mind and senses, and she had charged forward, fighting side by side with the assault group as they cut a path of blood through the enemy’s rear positions. All the time, the machineguns roared above them as the helicopter’s loadmasters poured out a savage rate of fire against the confused and fleeing people below.
The soldiers from the base had fought like devils out of anger and desperation, knowing all too well that their survival was at stake. And when the last shots had been fired, the landscape looked like a gigantic meat grinder had been at work. Twisted bodies lay strewn everywhere. Wounded cried and groaned, dragging their broken bodies over the carcasses of the fallen. Families, left behind amongst the ruins and forgotten about, sobbed over the bodies of their loved ones as the remnants of their forces withdrew towards the south in disarray. It was only when the firing had stopped that Tina looked upon the people she had helped to kill as human beings.
It quickly became apparent to all those involved that they had not been attacking just soldiers. The enemy unit seemed to have been on the move for a while, bringing their families with them as they searched for a safe place to live. Out of necessity, they had attacked the base. Afterwards, Tina had thought about what had happened and the stupidity and waste of it all. She came to the conclusion that the soldiers and civilians had been leading an almost nomadic lifestyle, possibly fighting numerous battles over the months as they struggled for survival. Her suspicions were more or less confirmed when she was told of the information that had been gained from some of the survivors.
Early on during the outbreak, they, too, had occupied a base, similar to the one that Tina found herself in now. They had been attacked by a much stronger force of raiders and overwhelmed. They were the survivors of a FOB further to the north, and faced with the possibility of annihilation, had adopted the same strategy of attacking other communities and taking what was theirs.