Chapter 12

“Wake up, wake up!” I heard Anne jerk me awake, and not in a good way, either.

“What’s up?” I asked groggily as I tried to shake myself out of that state.

“We gotta bustle, man! Time to relocate! Nicer place this time. Whole bloody, motherfucking street requisitioned for hospitals and quarters!” Anne told me, “evidently, that barrage was the last of their heavy munitions and they used it up trying for a breakout from the growing, alarming encirclement of their forces.”

“So, where are they?” I naturally wondered.

“Pinned down to a smaller bit of real estate, I believe. Our counterattack broke them, since they had no more heavy artillery and their ranks were thinned out a bit. They’re down to their last grenades, mortars, RPGs, that sort of thing. Machine gun nests. Sandbags. They can still fight back, but they’ve been driven inward on all fronts. Plus, of course, you can always see them coming. They’re fucking predictable,” Aaron remarked as he showed his face now.

“The consequence of not retreating when they could is that they now must retreat, no longer an option, right? They’ve been bled white, no pun intended. It’s like that old saying. The ship that does not obey the helm must obey the rocks. Still, expect them to fight like cornered animals, because that’s what they are now. Which will make our work as hectic as ever,” I groused like any good field nurse, any good soldier, for that matter.

“Imagine being a medic right now,” Anne noted.

“No thanks. I have enough nightmares from being a nurse,” I retorted.

“I bloody well hear you on that point!” Anne laughed bitterly.

“Okay, there’s our street now. And I do mean ours. Whole fucking cul-de-sac, all to us. They had to find ... other lodging for the residents, I’m afraid. Be it ever so gruesome, there’s no place like home,” Aaron scoffed.

“Damn, did you hear that?” Anne noted an outcry of some kind.

“Oh, fuck ... no ... Oh, dear God, no!” I raged.

“What?” Anne asked me now.

“Please tell me that even the Kluckers aren’t that stupid!” I screamed as we reached our main hospital, the best house on the street by far.

“What is it?” Aaron wondered now.

“That’s the sort of war cry traditionally associated with human wave attacks. The Klan must really be desperate. And rather frenzied at that. They must all have a suicide pact or else there’s another explanation as to why they have a death wish. They’re going to throw everyone and every single piece of gear into the fight, everything but the kitchen sink. Risk it all on one last roll of the dice. At this point, it’s either conquer or die, as they say. They have no third choice,” I cursed my bad luck right then.

“Shite!” Anne cussed now.

She realized just how high the body count was likely to be, and no small number of them would be Kluckers that we would have to stitch up and save. We might very well be overwhelmed within minutes and triage would be on steroids. There would be no way to save them all and yet we couldn’t prioritize based upon which side they chose. That would be medically unethical. This meant that plenty of Militiamen would die just because of how many there were of them.

God damn it, why couldn’t I catch a break?

Such were my thoughts as we set up the operating room in what had been the living room, by far the largest single chamber in the house. The duty desk and roster were put in the foyer, but the kitchen and johns would remain the same, for obvious reasons. The trick was where to place the beds. So much furniture was just in the way, which was a shame because of how fine and ornate much of it was. This was probably the home of some CPA or lawyer, not rich enough for a McMansion, but prosperous enough to live in the better parts of town.

I could only guess what would happen to the value of this house later, but I suspected that it might never return to residential use, anyway. It was part of history now, or else it would be. For now, though, I had to clean up from setting up a field hospital in a total stranger’s house. Sadly for me, this time, I would shower alone.

Oh, well, with the dead and wounded pouring in, I didn’t have time or anything like that for company.

Fuck my luck.