I apologize immensely. Seems like I uploaded this to FF, but didn't add it to the story. My apologies
Author's note
I am sorry I haven't updated in a while. I have had a hard time getting this chapter right. I hope it turned out alright in the end.
Thank you all for your comments.
Enjoy!
Bass's POV
I am sitting here trying to block out the screaming and shouting, which is coming from upstairs, while Nutter is trying to get out of the ties. Reggie has been up there for roughly 15 minutes and by the sound of things, they have been going at him hard.
I throw another worried glance towards Nutter, who is working furiously. He buried the screw close to his pole, in the dirt, until we were ready to go through with this insane plan.
A few minutes later I hear something snap and turn my head to look at my friend again. His wrists are bloody, but they are free at last. He quickly get's up and immediately starts working on my ties too. The quicker we do this the better.
"Ready?" He questions as he helps me up. I only and we move over to the door.
Nutter is on the right side and I on the left and I start shouting over and over again "HEY….HEY YOU ASSHOLES…COME DOWN HERE…I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU". I do this until I hear someone coming down the stairs.
We both count the steps silently in our heads and brace ourselves as we reach ten. The door fly's open and Nutter immediately takes him into a head lock and I cover the guy's mouth with my hands.
The guy struggles against Nutter's hold, but Nutter just tightens his hold. Thankfully Reggie is screaming his lunges out upstairs, as planned.
A couple of minutes later the guy's body goes lax and we double check that he is really unconscious, before undressing him. Nutter slips in the guys 'Uniform' and takes his machine gun, leaving me with a 9mm Pistol. Thank you America, for delivering made in the USA weapons to the Iraqi soldiers.
I follow Nutter up the stairs and then to the left. We agreed to clear the house counterclockwise, hoping to only encounter our enemy in the 'torturing' room.
The room to the left is empty and we move on. The next room is the kitchen, in which we encounter another Taliban, whose back is towards us. That works to our advantage.
Nutter grabs a dish towel from the table and surprises the guy by covering his mouth with it. One hand tightly on the towel and his right arm around the guy's neck, he renders him unconscious in no time.
This time I throw on the Taliban's clothes, which smell a lot like tobacco and piss, and grab his guns, before we move on. This all happens in perfect silence. The only noise comes from Reggie in the other room.
We clean two more rooms, without encountering anyone. By now my veins are pumping with adrenalin and my heart is beating a mile a minute as we casually walk into the room that Reggie is held in. No one even looks at us as we enter.
As Reggie looks up, I tap my gun three times with my thumb and nod once, which is the signal we agreed on. Reggie nods back and just as the bad guy is about to Taser him again, Nutter shoots him.
The other five guys, who are in the room too, look at us stunned and it takes them a couple of seconds to realize what is going down. They raise their weapons and start firing at us.
We quickly fall back into the hallway, waiting on either side of the door, waiting patiently for them to stop shooting. For about 5 seconds it's dead silent in the house, before Nutter and I take the chance and open fire on them.
We manage to shoot two of them, but unfortunately Reggie takes one into the knee, and we have to draw back into the hallway, since the bad guys reloaded and start shooting again.
"One to the left behind the sofa…one to the right, behind that table" Nutter whispers and I nod. He motions with his hands for me to take the right and that he will take the left one. I nod once more, before we turn back into the room.
Another round of Ammo later, we finally manage to bring the situation under control.
First Nutter and I tie the alive ones to each other and to a table and then free Reggie.
"I have a look if I can find our gear" Nutter informs me and leaves the room. Leaving me to take care of Reggie.
I quickly tear the clothing I am wearing apart, grab the bottle of alcohol from the table and disinfect Reggie's bullet wound. He presses his eyes shot as the alcohol hits the wound, but no sound comes out of his mouth. Once I am finished with that I warp the wound as tightly as I can.
"Damn Bass….let me look at yours" Reggie says, as I am just about to move away.
"At my what?" I question harshly.
"Your wound" He points to my stomach and as I look down on myself, I see that there is blood soaking my green, army issued shirt.
"Can't feel it…Too much adrenaline pumping through my veins" I point out. I lift my shirt over my head to inspect it closer and flinch as I pull at the wound.
"Seems like it went straight through, but there is a chance that you still got parts of it in there" Reggie informs me. He did basic nurse training with the army and wants to become a front line medic.
Reggie quickly disinfects my wound too, with a worried look on his face, before tightening a piece of clothing around my abdomen. He is just about to say something, as we suddenly hear some clatter coming from the front of the house and I immediately grab my gun and silently move to where the noises are coming from.
As I look out the front door, I can see Nutter being held at gun point by a smaller guy, in the same outfit as our hostage takers. And this guy is heavily armed too. He has a pistol aimed at Nutter's head, a machine gun hanging of his shoulder and a couple of grenades are lying next to him on the ground. They must have fallen out of the bag, which is sitting right beside them.
We must have missed one. I am glad that the guy's back is towards me and that they are standing about 5 meters away from the front door, hopefully I can move behind him undetected.
"هيا ... وضع المسدس. أنا لا أقصد أي ضرر (Come on...put the gun down. I don't mean any harm)" Nutter says to him, trying to distract him, so that he isn't paying attention to his surroundings.
"من أنت؟ وكيف تحصل هنا؟ (Who are you? And how did you get here?)" The smaller man asks. By the sound of his voice, I'd say this one hasn't even reached puberty.
Before Nutter has the chance to answer, I move behind the kid and press the gun into his back." وضع المسدس (Put the gun down)" I have been in this part of the world often enough to speak the language almost fluently. The kid immediately drops the gun and raises his hands. I did not expect this to go that easy.
As I move back into the house with the kid, I encounter Reggie, who has a gun trained at my head. "It's just me" I assure him and he lowers the weapon immediately.
"I was prepared to shoot my way out of here!" He replies and helps me secure the kid to the table.
"Found our stuff" Nutter, who followed me back into the house, informs us. He hands us our clothes and we get suited up. I am surprised the Taliban didn't burn it.
"Radio? Compass?" I question as I can't find it.
"Non existing" Nutter replies. "Found a phone. Unfortunately the phone doesn't have any reception in this area, so we have to wait till we get to lower ground."
Ten minutes later we scarped enough food, water and ammunition together to survive for at least three days. As we step outside I ask the most important question. "Any Idea where we are?"
"Well according to this phone it's 9 am, the way the sun is sitting I'd say north is that way. So we will need to go north-west…" Nutter guesses and points into the direction, which will lead us right through the mountains. In other words, he doesn't know where we are and we will have to wing it.
"Stay frosty Oscar Mike" I tell them and start marching. It's going to be a long and slow way home, since Reggie can barely put pressure on that knee. He found himself some wood, which is half as tall as him, but will serve well as a crutch.
"You gotta go on…" I say weakly and motion for them to keep going.
"After all this shit…we are not leaving you here" Reggie says sternly and drops to the ground next to me. I have lost too much blood during this two day hike and I am now on my last drop of energy. I am surprised that I even made it this far.
"You go ahead and get help. I will wait here for the extraction" I say to them, but we all know that the extraction will either come too late or not at all.
The phone was a bust. The battery died before we even got into signal range. Plus we have yet to encounter another human being and if or when we do, we can't even be sure if they are friendlies or enemies.
"Nutter" I motion for my friend to get closer. I grab an envelope out of my breast pocket and hand it to him. "Just in case."
He takes it off me and tugs into his pants pockets, without uttering a word. He knows what is in that envelope. He wrote one just like that. It's a letter to the people we love and leave behind if we don't make it. Nutter will deliver it personally to Charlie and Alex, just like I would do for him, were the roles reversed.
"We will stop here to get some rest" My friend says and helps me up, so that we can go a little into the forest, in case any enemies are on the lookout from the mountains.
"BASS" Charlie screams in a high pitched voice behind me and I accidently drop the egg I have been holding.
"Jesus…don't scare me…" I stop mid-sentence as I turn around and take a look at her. Her face tells me that she is in pain and the puddle on the flood tells me that she is in labor…HOLY SHIT SHE IS IN LABOR!
I don't even know how we made it safely to the hospital, because everything just happened in a blur. My main concern was Charlie and her high pitches screams.
"Congratulations, it's a boy" The doctor says with a smile on her face, after 36 intense hours of labor. "Would you like to cut the cord?" She adds and hands me the scissors.
After I cut it, our son is whisked away by the doctors and I can't keep my eyes of my beautiful wife. "Thank you" I kiss her sweaty forehead with a smile.
"For what?" She questions with a tiered, but happy look on her face.
"Making this possible for me. Sticking with me. I love you" I tell her and press a kiss to her lips. Behind me someone clears their throat and we draw away from each other.
"What is his name going to be?" The doctor asks with our son in her arms.
"William Alexander Monroe" Charlie informs us, making me look at her in shook.
"You want to use my Dad's name?" I question astonished.
"Yes, I do" Charlie smiles at me and takes our son from the doctor.
"I don't deserve you" I tell her and quickly take out my phone to snap a picture of my family.
"Nah, you deserve more…only you haven't realized it yet" She retorts shooting me a cheeky grin. We have had that part of the conversation countless of times, and she always answers with that. "You want to hold you son?"
I only nod and take him into my arms. I am instantly in love with this little human being. Alex looks so tiny; making me afraid I'd break him if I hold him too tight.
"Bass….Bass" Nutter shakes me a little, just before I open my eyes.
"What?" I growl weakly. I didn't want to wake from that dream. That was a great day and I hoped that Charlie and I would get to do it again at some point, but by the look of my condition that won't be possible. I definitely regret that we wasted so much time. Time is running out on me.
"We've got company"
Enemies or Friendlies…? Loved it? Hated it? Leave a comment and tell me all about it!