Pandemic

NINETEEN.

Sergeant Ramos, half his face turned into hamburger and billowing smoke, grinned at him with the other half and showed him the pig-sticker he kept in his boot.

Wade awoke, gasping for air.

A soldier in ragged fatigues jumped back as Wade lunged upright.

“You were screaming, bro,” the soldier said. “Bad for morale.”

“He means shut the fuck up,” another soldier barked, lying against the wall.

Wade heard the distant babble of thousands of voices. He was hot. Sweat was pouring off him. His face ached and itched. He was lying on the carpet of some type of office. From the trophies and pennants that decorated the place, he guessed the occupant to be a football coach.

A few soldiers sat smoking in chairs or on the floor. They were from Tenth Mountain, but Wade didn’t recognize anybody from Bravo Company.

He touched the bulky bandage on his face. His vision blurred. He was gone again.

Sometime later, a woman’s asked, “You want some water?”

Wade opened his eyes and drank deep from the offered canteen.

“You’re all right,” she said. The woman was slim and athletic-looking, pretty except for the black eye and massive bruise on the left side of her face.

“Who are you?” he croaked.

She smiled, displaying some broken teeth. “Sergeant Sandra Rawlings. 164th Transportation Battalion. Alpha Company, the Muleskinners. Massachusetts Guard.”

“Where’s my platoon?”

“Can’t help you there, soldier.”

“Wade. Private First Class Scott Wade. Bravo Company.”

“First Battalion, Tenth Mountain, right. You look like you were in the shit. Somebody brought you here, and now here you are.”

“What is this place?”

“I’ll give you the nickel tour.” She held up a knife. “First, the special orientation.”

Wade stared at the knife. He saw Ramos holding it, leering down with his Klown face.

Gonna make a hole. Make it wide.

“If you touch me without permission, I’ll cut off your balls,” Rawlings said. “And if you ever get the drop on me, you’d better kill me after. Understand?”

He gaped at the knife twirling in her hand.

I’m going to make you one of us.

BOOM! Ha, ha!

“Jesus, Rawlings, give the guy a break,” one of the soldiers said.

She put the knife away and studied Wade with concern. “You okay?”

He blinked. “No.”

She offered her hand. “Let’s get you that nickel tour.”

Wade let her help him up. He felt unsteady on his feet. His ankle still hurt from the fight at the hospital. He was bruised everywhere from the Humvee crash. A little dizzy, he wondered if he’d suffered a mild concussion.

Rawlings swept her hand across one of the big picture windows. “Harvard Stadium.”

The U-shaped stadium offered a majestic view of the playing field and stands. The field was covered in tents. Thousands of people milled around them. A safety shelter.

“It’s something to see, huh?” Rawlings grinned. “Home of Harvard’s football team. Janis Joplin performed her last show here in 1970. It’s where The Game is played.”

“You mean football?”

“The Game, Wade. Harvard versus Yale. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“I’m from Wisconsin.”

“Never been there.” She shook her head. “I’ve been to Iraq but not Wisconsin. Funny.”

“Who’s in charge here?”

“Down there? Nobody. You got Red Cross, some local government, charities and churches. Those people are shell shocked. Many of them are armed. And they’re really pissed off.”

“I need to report in and find my unit. Who’s in command of this unit?”

“Nobody. You want the job, Wade?”

“Who’s senior?”

Rawlings jerked her thumb toward the far corner of the room. “Him.”

Wade turned and saw a sergeant lying in a fetal ball on the floor.

She said, “Don’t know his name. He hasn’t said a word since he got here.”

“What is this? Why are we here?”

“I was guarding a truck that got thwacked. Ended up here by chance. As for you Tenth Mountain boys… Apparently, this is a casualty collection point. There are guys here from all over your battalion, some walking wounded, but mostly psychiatric casualties. Guys messed up in the head. Wounds that run deep. A few are catatonic. There are maybe thirty guys here in all.”

Wade nodded at the massive crowds below. “And the mission is to protect them?”

“Our job is to stay alive, Wade. This building is the university’s athletics department. We got views all around. We keep an eye on things. Helicopters drop food once a week. We go down there and get what we need at gunpoint. We let them sort out the rest on their own.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be distributing it or something?”

Rawlings snorted. “That sounds like a great way to get killed.”

“What’s it like down there?”

“Just what it looks like. A shithole. Every day, you got fistfights, murders, rape and shootings over women, beer, smokes. You ask me, it’s a powder keg just waiting to go off. You got a weapon, cowboy?”

He shook his head. “Lost it.”

“Ammo?”

“A few mags for my M4.”

“We’ll see about getting you armed. One more thing, Wade. Sleep every chance you get.”

“Why is that?”

“Because somebody is always screaming in their sleep and waking everybody up.” She sighed. “Those poor guys, the things they’ve seen and done… I don’t want to know.”

Wade studied her face. She really was pretty. “What happened to you, Sergeant?”

“You don’t want to know.”