The Colonel Vs. The Parson's Boogie Man Chapter 9
Recap: After the capture of El Llarono and Alexi Volcoff, Chad Shelton is airlifting his brother Casey and Pastor Annie to Harborview. However, an emergency landing near Mt. St. Helens begins to take a deadly turn for the worse before the military can come to rescue.
The deep velvet night was beginning to cool, but her right side was uncomfortably hot, so much so that her blouse was sticking to her ribs. She thrust her arm out of the silver emergency blanket, and when she did, the hard body next to her groaned in deep pain. She turned to try and see the face of John Casey, looming only a few inches from her eyes, but his eyes, normally inquisitively brilliant blue, was squeezed shut, and rivulets of sweat was trailing down his strong face and jaw. It was then Pastor Annie Coburn realized her own boyfriend's body heat was what had woken her.
"John? What's wrong?" She touched his chest, and he grabbed her hand, and raised it to his forehead.
"So hot…Chappy…so...hot." He moaned and literally licked her cold hand. He had thrown the blanket off of his body in the night, and now he struggling to keep the movement of his chills under control.
"The sun…on the sand…I can't get enough of the shade. Captain said…we need…to drink." John opened his eyes, searching frantically around him, for the shade he desired, not seeing the darken fir trees around the two of them. Annie reached over to the med kit and pulled another water bottle out. She folded his shaking hands around it, and guided them to his mouth. He only took a few sips, because he began to cough violently, and then lurched to one side, spitting something warm and wet up onto the forest ground. Annie could smell the coppery air around his mouth, and she stepped quickly over to the smoldering fire to wake up John's twin brother, Chad Shelton.
He came awake with a start, a fully cocked Sig at her face, but she held her hands up, and talked to him quietly. "Chad, you have got to help me with John. Something's very wrong."
Chad got up slowly from his crouched position, groaning a little as his broken rib caused a large pang of pain in his side, but he aimed the beam of his flashlight onto his brother, who was continuing to retch among the pine needles. He slipped the Sig back in his waistband and then crouched by his brother.
"John, what's going on?" He touched his brother's shoulder, and John reared up and grabbed him into a hug. At the same time, John's belly wound doubled him up, and the two men ended on the forest floor, on top of each other.
"Cap, you got to help me. You told me to drink…I can't do it…I can't do it." John wheezed and let go of Chad, who bit his lip as his busted bone protested. Shelton rolled off, and gasped when his bandaged burnt hands hit the forest ground. He lifted the light with both hands, and shone it in John's eyes. What he saw there concerned him greatly. The whites of John's eyes were no longer white; even in the flashlight, they were putrid yellow, and flecks of blood were encrusted not only around John's mouth but on his nose and in each ear. Chad tried to get the thermometer from the med kit, but his bandaged and burned hands set him off in a round of yelping pain, as he knocked them against the zipper. He dropped the flashlight, and gathering his hands together, moaned, rocking back and forth on his haunches.
"Parson, get the thermometer. John, let the Parson take your temp, man." Annie rummaged around in the kit, and pulled a small thermometer out to test John. However, Casey shut his lips tight, and refused to take it in.
Shelton had had enough. He roared loudly, "Let the chappie take your damn temp, soldier!" He put the flashlight in his mouth, and shone it so Annie could take John's temp. The Marine colonel immediately stopped his erratic head movement, and opened his mouth obediently.
Annie looked at Chad out of the corner of her eye, and frowned slightly, and then returned to counting the three minutes she needed to take John's core temperature.
With the flashlight still in his mouth, Chad groused, "I know, only God could damn but sometimes I want to kill my older brother!"
Annie smirked at that statement, and then the gauge beeped. "104" she sighed heavily. John began once again to look out beyond the campsite to try and look for something his only own mind could see.
"You hear, chappie? You hear? The s.o.b. Bathe separatists have got us surrounded. I told the Captain this was going to happen. I just need to find my gun. You got my gun, chappie?" John was getting frantic and he tried to pull himself up from the ground, by latching on to her shoulders.
"Listen, Casey, the captain got your gun. He said he would put some more bullets in it for you, so you can be ready when they strike, ok?" Annie was desperately trying to keep her voice and heart calm, so she could connect with the world John was currently in. "Why don't you lie back, and let me check that belly wound of your, Marine?" she glanced at Chad who was nodding admirably at her adlib performance. John nodded once, and tried to lie down, but his left leg caught on a root, and he gasped as he remembered the break.
"See, chappie, they did this to me? They blew a hole in my belly, and then they gun butted my leg. You got to get my gun back, chappie! I don't want to be without my gun." He grabbed her hands, and begged her with his entire being. It was then Shelton passed him the unloaded Sig, and explained, "Here, Lt. Casey, I got the gun loaded and ready for you. You keep it near your chest, while Chappie and I look at your belly wound, ok?"
John took the gun gratefully, hugging it to his chest, as a little boy hugs a favorite toy.
"Oh, Cap, that's really good. Thanks, Cap." John seemed less frantic, and he allowed them both to shine the flashlight on the bandaged wound. The gauze was filled with blood, and as Annie peeled the various layers off, a small but steam stream of blood was flowing out of the wound. She gasped loudly, and shot a glance at Casey's brother.
"What's happening, Chad? He'll bleed to death, if we don't stop it." Chad lowered his head and wiped his forehead with his bandaged hand. He grabbed the flashlight out of his mouth, and stared at the preacher.
"We've got to stop the flow. There's an artery that is broken open, and we have got to locate it and shut it off." He gingerly took the med kit and dumped the contents out onto the ground. Using one finger of his right hand, he poked through until he found some suture thread and a surgical needle. He passed the supplies to Annie, whose mouth was hanging open at his plan. He looked at her neck, and commanded her, "Get that cross necklace off, Annie. You are going to use the necklace to shut the bleeding off, and then you can suture the artery shut."
Her eyes widened, and she began to shake slightly from the fear. "Dear God, you are not suggesting that I perform surgery here in this forest?"
Chad grabbed her hands, and squeezed them slightly, wincing at the pain. "Annie, this has been done on the battle fields of Europe, and in Iraq. We locate the bleed, loop the necklace around it, tighten it, and then sew off the ends with the surgery thread."
"But, what if he bleeds to death because I do something wrong?" She looked down at John, still cradling the Sig against his chest, but his body was jerking sporadically. Chad gently took her chin, and brought it up to look at his face. He gulped slowly, and then said quietly, "If you don't do it here, now, then he will bleed to death."
She closed her eyes, and said a soft prayer for her beloved Colonel. When her eyes opened, Chad's head was bowed too, and she realized he was praying also.
"Amen," he softly said, and crossed himself. He looked up, and grinned smugly. "Hey, never hurts to get more help on our side." Annie laughed softly, and then asked, "What do we do first?"
"Find some i.v. tubing. John and I have the same blood type, of course, so we need to fix up some basic transfusion lines from me to him, so he won't go into shock. Any pain meds in there?" Chad shone the light on the ground, as Annie found the tubing with needles attached and a bottle of Vicodin. He crawled on his knees over to John, and lifted his brother's head onto his lap. John turned his yellowed eyes onto his "Captain" and smiled shakily.
"Lt., I want you to take some pain meds. Chaplain and me, we're going to fix your belly wound, but it's not going to be fun. While we are patching up your belly, you keep look out for those separatists, ok, son?" John nodded, and with Chad's help to lift his head, he dry swallowed four pills, and laid his head back down on John's lap.
Annie found two rubber elastics and she first tied Chad's left upper arm off, and began to hit the vein so it would pop up. She then tied off John's left arm, and repeated the same thing. Chad kept the light in his teeth, and followed her movements carefully. He hissed as she inserted the needle first into his arm, and then nodded with approval as she inserted the other end into Casey's. Slowly at first, and more rapidly Chad's blood flowed from his arm into his brother's, and as the more the blood flowed the clearer John's mind became.
"Chad, Annie what have you two in mind?" he groaned and looked down at the needle in his arm with bewilderment.
"John, you're bleeding to death. Doctor Annie here is going to perform surgery on your belly, and then we are going to close you up and let you sleep, ok, older brother?" Chad figured he better not lie now, but John just nodded slowly, as his eyes began to droop.
"That's nice, Annie." He slurred. "Just don't tell Chad I really like his blood, ok?" He nodded slowly, and shut his eyes, relaxing into the pain medications.
"Ok, Annie, now, Take the gauze and try to clear as much blood and scab away from the wound, by washing it out with saline." As Annie poured the saline in, the wound bubbled, and John grimaced at the pain, his eyes still shut.
"See, the bubbling? That's the bleed. Take the cross off your necklace, and loop the chain around the leaking artery." Chad's speech was slurred around the flashlight, but he dare not handle it with his wounded hands.
Annie slowly looked into the gaping hole, and gasped at the bubbling. "I found it, Chad." She carefully looped the chain around the artery, and then pulled it tight. John screamed, and his entire body bolted upward, even under the pain meds. Chad threw himself over his brother's chest, trying to get him to settle down, as he continued to talk to John carefully and calmly. "Now, John, don't you go mucking up Dr. Annie's surgery, now, right? She is working hard to make your belly stop hurting, but you got to do your part." John settled down at the sound of his brother's voice, and Chad released his hold. Swiftly, Annie sutured the ends with the thread, and then poured more saline into the wound. This time, John only moaned, and his eyes fluttered open as he searched for her face.
"Beloved…" he asked softly. She paused in her movement and moved closer to his face. He brought his hand up to her and wiped a tear from her eye. "Will…you… marry me?" He tried to keep his eyes open long enough to get her answer, but it was a losing battle. Chad snickered, and then said, "See, Parson, I told you you two had it bad."
"That proposal is about as real as the separatists John is seeing out in the woods." Annie scoffed, and packed the wound with more gauze and taped it up. She pulled the transfusion needles out and bandaged both of the brothers' arms. She put everything back in the med kit pack, and as she was standing to stretch, Chad rose carefully and held his arms out.
"Come here, woman." He ordered softly, and she fell into his arms, sobbing with the release of the stress of the surgery. He soothed her hair, noticing it smelled softly of peaches, and he began to rock her gently. "You did good, woman. Real good. Now, let's you and I share a celebratory power bar, and snuggle next to that big brute of a brother of mine, until the morning all right?"
Annie nodded slowly, suddenly feeling very exhausted. He led her over to John once again, and pulled the blanket over Casey and her. He found a power bar, and broke it in half and shared it with the parson. She munched on it thankfully, but before she finished it she had already fallen asleep on his brother's chest.
Chad popped a pain pill, also, and then snuggled over on the other side, under the silver blanket. He looked up into the sky, when the first rays of early dawn were beginning to appear. "You did good, God, too. Thank you." He said softly, and then promptly fell asleep also.
