Rolling Thunder

42

My ears are ringing as a battalion of heavily armed ninjas swarms into the control room.

I see four silhouettes of soldiers grab Skippy’s arms and legs and lift him up off the ground. His pistol rattles to the floor.

He’s screaming.

“My arm! Jesus, my fucking arm!”

Through the blinding white burning my retinas I can see a rump roast of raw beef where Skippy’s right shoulder used to be.

The SWAT guys drag his ass out the door. Fast. All around me, it’s smoky bedlam. People screaming. Crying. Wailing. Soldiers shouting, “Out, out. Go, go.”

Mr. Ceepak is somewhere on the floor, wheezing. I smell the metallic scent of blood.

“We need a medic over there!” I stumble toward the door. “There’s a wounded man in the corner.”

“Good work, Officer Danny!” a voice cuts through the panicked din and the alarm clock bells jangling in my eardrums.

It’s the girl. Layla.

“Out, out, out!” Robocop is in the house, hustling Layla and the other hostages out the door.

My temporary blindness finally fades.

“Keep your legs down, Dad!”

It’s Ceepak. In the corner. Working on his father, who is gurgling and rasping and gushing blood.

“Johnny,” the old man groans. “You gotta fucking help me … don’t fuck this up, you stupid shit.”

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you see?”

“Yeah.”

“I need more sterile gauze.” He tears off his T-shirt and stuffs it into his father’s abdomen. “Stat. Alert the medics, then grab the AED out of the ticket office. He’s going into v-fib.”

Ceepak starts pumping on his father’s chest.

As I’m running out the trailer door, I hear Ceepak shout, “Don’t die on me, you goddamn son of a bitch! Don’t you dare die!”