The Things We Bury - Part 1: In Anticipation of the End of the World [Completed]

Chapter 12: Situation Desperate (Part 4 of 8)

Barbara couldn't sit still. Being stuck in the security room was infuriating. She paced like a wild animal in a cage. Restlessly, she roamed down the aisles trying to get a better view of what was happening, but the smoke obstructed any clear view of the atrium. All she could go by was the shouts, the screams, and the sound of bullets that penetrated her sanctuary.

The noise seemed thunderous in its intensity, but when the door opened, the volume rose to an ear-splitting level. In the second before she made out the face of the man who entered, Barbara imagined Delgado—she imagined some assassin—she imagined a million different things. It was just one of The Major's soldiers.

When he spotted Barbara evaluating him, a strange self-consciousness slowed his rush. He seemed to feel it necessary to explain himself as he headed to the equipment lockers. "We've got wounded. I was sent to get a medkit."

"How's it going out there?"

He punched in a code on the only unopened door in the bank of lockers. "Not good. I hope the Air Force gets here soon. I don't know how much longer we can hold out."

It was that damn smoke filling the atrium like a malevolent entity. It wasn't just particles floating in air; it was the invaders' ally.

"What's that thing?" Barbara pointed to some grotesquely large rifle still clipped into the empty gun rack.

 The soldier had taken a white backpack and was checking its contents.  He had to lean back to see what she was talking about. "What? Oh. An RPG-rocket powered grenade launcher." After his explanation, he began to make haste to return to the battle.

"Take it," Barbara ordered him. "Use it to blow out the windows and clear away the gas."

He looked at her. He was a young man, so young it made Barbara feel her age. His features hinted at some Asian influence in his heritage, a generation or two ago. She realized she knew his name: Cpl. Hawes.

The man—the boy, hesitated only for a moment, then made a dash over to it. He hauled it up over his shoulder and grabbed a second bag, black, and from the way the strap strained, much heavier than the medical kit.

Too soon, Hawes was gone and Barbara was alone again. Everything was coming apart. There had been other times in her life she'd felt this way. She was experiencing that strange feeling of the ground disappearing beneath her. Her feet floundering in air like in some insipid cartoon.

The same sickening, unnerving feeling had overwhelmed her the day she got caught.

It was a winter evening after office hours, and Barbara was too spent from surgery to be suspicious of the invitation to see Carol Higgins. She had enough run-ins with the shriveled up, little administrator to think it was anything other than another slap on the wrist for failing to fill out paperwork properly.

"Dr. Gadaskinas. Sit down." Higgins spoke, half rising from her seat with that stick-up-the-ass look Barbara had seen many times. The woman was a heap of rules and numbers crammed into a K-Mart pantsuit. While the doctors were saving lives, she was pinching pennies. What she lacked in talent and skill, she made up for with an overbearing air of authority.

"It's late. What do you want? Unlike you, I have a life outside of this place."

"As charming as ever, I see." Higgins smoothed out her cornflower blue blazer as she settled back in her office chair. "I thought this meeting was going to be brutally unpleasant. Perhaps, I will get some grim pleasure out of this after all."

"Do you experience any other type of pleasure?"

"Yes, I think I might actually enjoy watching you squirm." Her face expressed no possibility of amusement.