The Search (5 page)

     “Okay, Bryan. I see your point. How about this…

     “How about I call for that vehicle? I’ll tell them to send a hummer, and to pack as many extra soldiers into it as they can fit.

     “The driver will drop off the reinforcements, and then will be at your disposal. You know this area much better than we do. He will take you to every place you can think of where Sarah might have gone to get medical treatment.

     “Meanwhile, I’ll have the reinforcements scour both sides of this roadway for a mile in either direction. She was still dripping blood every fifty to sixty feet right up until the time we hit the roadway.

     “I’ll have the men look for blood drops, as well as the usual signs. Overturned pine cones and rocks. Broken twigs and branches. Flattened grass…”

     The captain looked Bryan directly in the eyes, as though swearing out a solemn oath.

     “I promise you sir, that if we find anything… anything at all, I’ll get on my radio to my driver and tell him to turn around and get you back here immediately.”

     Bryan had been unsure which way to go.

     But Captain Martin’s offer was enough to sway him.

     He half-reluctantly agreed and nodded his head.

     “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Chapter 9

   
 
The Wilford Hall Regional Medical Center had been the primary trauma care center for all of south San Antonio for many years, even before Saris 7 struck the earth.

     As such, it treated civilian trauma cases as well as active duty military. In fact, it treated more civilian victims of car accidents and gunshot wounds than it did soldiers and airmen.

     The position of the United States Air Force had always been that an emergency is no time to quibble about who may or not be eligible to receive treatment from military doctors. That there was plenty of time to do that later, after triage and basic treatment was done.

     As for the civilian citizens of south San Antonio, Wilford Hall was a godsend. For many of them wouldn’t have been able to afford treatment at other local hospitals.

     And they knew the care they received at Wilford Hall was top notch, by some of the best surgeons and medical professionals in the business.

     Hannah couldn’t have been taken to a better place.

     She was out of her coma now. It was short by some standards, only lasting a bit over six days. But it was needed, her doctors told Mark, to help her heal.

     “Sometimes a patient’s own body knows better than we do what it needs. She’s been through a lot. Her brain has decided it needs to rest. Medically, there’s no other explanation for her not to have regained consciousness by now. But her brain is the boss. And it usually knows what’s best. So we’ll just make sure she has the pain medications she needs to rest comfortably, and the antibiotics she needs to prevent infections. And then we’ll just sit back and wait.”

     Hannah woke up to find Mark sound asleep in a portable bed beside her. He’d wanted to stay awake. Tried to, in fact. But his brain, it turned out, overruled his body as well.

     Hannah watched Mark as his chest rose and fell. His inhalations matched hers perfectly. They almost always did.

     They’d discovered that about themselves early on in their relationship. That at rest, they had identical rates of breathing.

     Later on, they discovered that their resting pulse was the same as well.

     They liked to tell people it was proof their hearts beat as one.

     Mark woke up when the sun in the east window warmed his face. By then, Hannah had been watching him for several minutes.

     For Mark, seeing Hannah’s eyes watching him gave him an instant shot of adrenaline.

     Hannah noticed tears in his eyes, and shed some to match.

     She was unable to speak because of the feeding tube in her throat. But that didn’t matter. She was alive. And she recognized Mark and tried her best to smile at him.

     And that was enough to make Mark the happiest man in the State of Texas.

     Hannah was able to communicate by scratching words on a notepad, using a pen Mark placed in her hand. She couldn’t see the pad, and her penmanship was horrendous. But Mark had no trouble reading it. It came close to matching his own handwriting.

     Nurse Ratchet had lot more experience dealing with intubated patients, and showed Mark how to communicate with Hannah by having her blink her eyes.

     Now, for more than an hour, they went through a series of yes or no questions to fill one another in on what happened.

     Mark asked, “Do you know how you crashed?”

     She stared blankly at him without blinking.

     No. She didn’t know.

     It had happened so fast, there was simply no time to react, or to even realize what was happening. One moment they were flying across the treetops, and the next they nosedived into the ground.

     Mark filled her in.

     “The doctor told me they finished the autopsy on the pilot yesterday. He died of a massive heart attack. They think he passed out and leaned on the control stick. He said that would explain why the co-pilot couldn’t prevent the crash.

     “Did you know that John didn’t make it?”

     Hannah blinked once.

     She knew.

     “Did you know that he probably saved your life?”

     She just stared at him, not understanding.

     “The rescue team said that John’s body was under the fuselage. Your legs were under it too, from just below your waist down. They said that his body was holding up most of the weight from the fuselage. That if he hadn’t been there your body would have taken the entire weight of it. It would have crushed your internal organs and you would have bled out.”

     Tears flowed from her eyes.

     Mark could have dried them with a tissue, but chose to kiss her eyelids instead.

     Hannah tried to mouth the name “Sami.”

     Surprisingly, Mark understood her.

     Maybe because he was expecting her to ask.

     “Sami is a wreck. Debbie and Karen are taking good care of her, giving her sedatives and tending to her needs. And of course Brad is there by her side. Debbie says her biggest worry is the baby. Sami’s prone to stress, and if this causes her to lose the baby, it’ll be ten times worse for her.”

     Hannah reached up and touched her heart with her right hand.

     “She already knows you love her, honey. But I’ll tell her.”

     He placed his own hand over hers.

     “They all do, honey. They’ve been crying for you and praying for you and Sami and Sarah every day.”

     Hannah’s pretty face took on a puzzled look.

     “Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry, I forgot you didn’t know.”

     Hannah’s eyebrows became furrowed. She wanted to cry out, “What? Know what?”

     But she couldn’t.

     “Sarah’s missing, baby. Several days now. She went out into the woods to pick flowers and never came back.”

Chapter 10

     The closest hospital to the compound was in the tiny hamlet of Eden.

     Far from being the paradise its name implied, Eden had been taken over by convicts released from a nearby prison just before Saris 7 hit.

     A misguided warden felt pity for the men under his care, and knew they would die of thirst if left in their cells when the prison was abandoned.

     So his last official act was to issue them a pardon, of sorts, and to open the gates to set them free.

     Had he thought things through, he’d have realized that the good citizens of Eden would pay a heavy price for his act of kindness.

     Most of the inmates scattered near and far. But a handful of the most brutal of the bunch settled in Eden. They raped, pillaged and plundered at will, and shot anyone who had the gumption to stand up to them.

     Marty Haskins, a friend of Mark and Hannah, led a team of vigilantes to clean up the town several months before.

     Now Eden was mostly peaceful again.

     At least it was for the thirty residents who’d survived the freeze and the brutality of the inmates.

     Two of those thirty residents worked together to run the Eden Medical Center.

     They were Doctor Harold Hamlin and Nurse Donna Toten.

     Actually, it was a “medical center” in name only. Eden didn’t have a hospital before the meteorite ravaged the small town. Before Saris 7 hit it was a privately owned clinic.

     But it had an operating room, of sorts, for outpatient procedures. So there was that.

     And it had the latest equipment for performing exams and running lab tests. So there was that too.

     Mostly, it had two people who were among the best in the country at triaging trauma victims.

     Harold had spent time in Vietnam as a young man and saw the worst that war had to offer. After he lost half a dozen good friends he swore he’d spend the rest of his days trying to save lives, not take them.

     Donna was the most highly regarded nurse San Antonio’s St. Mary’s Hospital ever had. She was credited with saving the lives of many critically injured patients being brought in for emergency surgery.

     The other nurses used to tell patients that once they made it to Nurse Donna, they had it made. That she’d wrap her angel’s wings around them and keep them safe until the surgeons could work their own magic.

     Donna retired and moved to Eden six months to the day before the world grew dark and cold.

     And when people were dying all around her, she went to Doctor Hamlin and said, “We’ve got to do something.”

     So the old clinic became the Eden Medical Center. It was tiny. But it was staffed by two very talented and very dedicated people. And they continued to save lives.

     Bryan had only been to the clinic once, but it was easy to remember where it was. Tucked behind a Dairy Queen at the intersection of Highway 87 and Highway 83, it was hard to miss.

     It was the only stoplight in town.

     Bryan’s driver pulled into the parking lot and examined the tiny building.

    “It’s not much of a clinic.”

     “Nope. But it’s the closest one to where we lost her scent. If it was a local who found her, this is where he’d bring her.”

     The driver waited in the Humvee with the engine running while Bryan went inside.

     There was an old-fashioned cowbell tied to the knob on the inside of the door. It wasn’t fancy, but it did an adequate job of announcing Bryan’s arrival.

     Nurse Donna met him at the front counter.

     “Hello there, young man. How can I help you?”

     “I’m looking for my wife. She was lost in the woods southwest of here. We lost her scent and the tracker said somebody picked her up. I’m hoping they brought her here.”

     “No, I’m afraid not. Was she injured?”

     “Yes. She was dripping blood every fifty or sixty feet for three miles.”

     “My goodness, that’s a significant amount. Have you tried the clinic in Kerrville, or the hospitals in San Angelo?”

     “No, ma’am. You’re our first stop. Are you in radio contact with any of them?”

     “We used to be. But our ham radio hasn’t worked in months.”

     Bryan was disappointed.

     And a little bit frustrated too.

     But he had no time to dwell on his bad luck, for he had more places to go.

     “Thank you, ma’am.”

     “You’re welcome, and I hope you find her. God bless you, son.”

     Bryan returned to the Humvee disappointed but undeterred.

     The driver, a young private, saw the look on Bryan’s face and knew their quest wasn’t over yet.